Carbon nanotubes and polyaniline supported Pt nanoparticles for methanol oxidation towards DMFC applications

Abstract

A microwave reduction route was employed for the synthesis of Pt nanoparticles supported on multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). The as-prepared Pt-MWCNT electrocatalysts were characterized by FT-IR, XRD and TEM analysis. Further, the as-prepared catalysts were probed for its electrocatalytic activity towards methanol oxidation by cyclic voltammetry (CV) in 0.5 M CH3OH + 0.5 M H2SO4 solution. Two kinds of electrocatalysts viz. Pt-MWCNT and Pt-MWCNT/PANI were probed to study the effect of both carbon nanotubes and polyaniline (PANI) towards methanol oxidation. The effect of scan rate, concentration and long-term cycle stability analysis has been investigated in detail. Results show that the presence of MWCNT and PANI improves the electrocatalytic efficiency towards methanol oxidation. Pt-MWCNT/PANI shows high peak current density towards methanol oxidation and good long-term stability even after 600 cycles indicating that the catalyst could be used for practical applications.