Pt-Bi decorated nanoporous gold for high performance direct glucose fuel cell

Abstract

Binary PtBi decorated nanoporous gold (NPG-PtBi) electrocatalyst is specially designed and prepared for the anode in direct glucose fuel cells (DGFCs). By using electroless and electrochemical plating methods, a dense Pt layer and scattered Bi particles are sequentially coated on NPG. A simple DGFC with NPG-PtBi as anode and commercial Pt/C as cathode is constructed and operated to study the effect of operating temperatures and concentrations of glucose and NaOH. With an anode noble metal loading of only 0.45 mg cm-2 (Au 0.3 mg and Pt 0.15 mg), an open circuit voltage (OCV) of 0.9 V is obtained with a maximum power density of 8 mW cm-2. Furthermore, the maximum gravimetric power density of NPG-PtBi is 18 mW mg-1, about 4.5 times higher than that of commercial Pt/C.