Beef-derived mesoporous carbon as highly efficient support for PtRuIr electrocatalysts and their high activity for CO and methanol oxidation

摘要

In this work, a low-cost and nitrogen-containing carbon with mesoporous pores and high surface area was synthesized bycarbonizing a natural biomass precursor, i.e. beef. It is found that the prepared material has excellent textural properties such ashigh specific surface areas and large pore diameters. TEM images showed that the PtRuIr nanoparticles were well dispersed onthe surface of carbonized beef (C-Beef). PtRuIr/C-Beef was highly active for methanol electro-oxidation. PtRuIr/C-Beef showedsuperior catalytic activity to PtRuIr/C, i.e. lower onset potential and higher oxidation current density. Cyclic voltammogramsof CO electro-oxidation showed that PtRuIr/C-Beef catalyst was kinetically more active for CO electro-oxidation than PtRuIrdeposited on conventional carbon support. The highly porous structure and low cost of carbonized beef can be widely used assupport for highly dispersed metal nanoparticles to increase their electrochemical performance as electrocatalysts.