Synthesis of Hollow Carbon Hemisphere and its Application as the Support Material for Platinum Nanoparticle Catalysts towards the Methanol Electro-oxidation

摘要

In the past two decades, the different structured carbon materials such as carbon nanotubes, diamond-like carbon, glass-like carbon, carbon nanowires, carbon nanospheres and hollow carbon spheres have been synthesized and extensively utilized as electrode materials in wide range of electrochemical systems. Especially in the fuel cell application, almost all the carbon materials have been tested as support materials for electrocatalysts. To achieve a higher efficiency of the electrocatalysts, noble metal nanoparticles have to be well dispersed on the carbon materials. For this reason, it is desirable that the carbon material provides certain characteristics such as suitable specific area, surface chemistry and good electrical conductivity. Hollow carbon spheres (HCSs) is one of the most promising carbon support materials for catalysts applied on electrodes due to their high surface area as support to improve the catalytic performance. Various approaches, such as self-assembly template processes, pyrolysis reduction and hydrothermal methods have been carried out to prepare HCSs with different yields and sizes. In terms of the controllability of size and shape in macro-or nano-scale, the template-based synthesis would be the most defined approach, because the spherical morphology of HCSs can be easily tailored by adjusting the morphological feature and the diameter of the template cores.