A promising Modification of Pt Surfaces with CNTs for Decreasing Poisoning Impact in Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

摘要

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) are clean energy sources that have many applications due to thehigh energy density of methanol as a fuel. However, this type of fuel cells (FCs) has limitations that arepreventing it from being commercialized. One such limitation is the adsorption of intermediates such asCO into the surface of the Platinum (Pt) catalyst during methanol oxidation (MO) which deactivates itsactive sites, where the reaction is taking place, and leads to poisoning of the electrode over the long term.In this study, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have been introduced to the Pt-modified glassycarbon (Pt/GC) electrode aiming to improve MO efficiency. The results showed that MWCNTs couldhelp in enhancing the electrocatalytic activity of the modified electrode which reflected from increasingthe direct oxidation current, I p d , by a factor of 1.6. This increases the electrode' activity and durabilityduring continuous electrolysis.