High-Performance Electrocatalytic Activity of Pt Nanoprticles/Chitosan 3-D Nanocomposites

摘要

A novel kind of hybrid nanocomposites containing Pt nanoparticles (PtNPs) and Chitosan (CS) have been fabricated based on the PtNPs inserting into the porous structure of CS on the surface of glassy carbon electrode (GCE). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra and several electrochemical techniques, such as cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), have been used to characterize PtNPs/CS modified electrode. Electrocatalytic experiments show that these uniform nanocomposites can greatly decrease the over-potential and increase the peak current in the methanol oxidation and oxygen reduction. In comparison with the results reported previously, the PtNPs-CS nanocomposites have excellent electrocatalytic activity towards the oxidation of methanol and reduction of oxygen, which can be utilized to develop new fuel cell with high performance.