Au/C catalyst prepared by polyvinyl alcohol protection method for direct alcohol alkaline exchange membrane fuel cell application
Journal article
Authors/Editors
Strategic Research Themes
No matching items found.
Publication Details
Author list: Yongprapat S., Therdthianwong A., Therdthianwong S.
Publisher: Springer
Publication year: 2012
Journal: Journal of Applied Electrochemistry (0021-891X)
Volume number: 42
Issue number: 7
Start page: 483
End page: 490
Number of pages: 8
ISSN: 0021-891X
eISSN: 1572-8838
Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)
View in Web of Science | View on publisher site | View citing articles in Web of Science
Abstract
An Au/C catalyst was prepared by means of the polyvinyl alcohol-protected Au sol method. Highly dispersed Au nanoparticles with an average particle size of around 3.7 nm were obtained as confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. The cyclic voltammogram of Au/C was similar to that of a bulk Au electrode, but a small shift of Au oxide reduction and oxidation potential peaks were observed. The electrooxidation of methanol, ethanol, ethylene glycol, and glycerol on the Au/C catalyst in an alkaline solution was analyzed. Using a cyclic voltammogram, the maximum current density toward alcohol electrooxidation was found to decrease in the order of glycerol > ethylene glycol > ethanol, while methanol was not oxidized. Compared with PtRu/C, the maximum current densities obtained from the Au/C catalyst for ethylene glycol and glycerol electrooxidation were increased by 1.6 and 3.3 times, respectively. The reaction heavily progressed through a C-C bond dissociation path. It was found that main product of glycerol electrooxidation was formic acid, which accounted for more than 60 % of the total product. Using chronoamperometry, the Au/C catalyst showed much better stability than that of PtRu/C for the reaction without C-C bond dissociation and better stability for the reaction with C-C bond dissociation. ฉ 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
Keywords
Ethylene glycol, PVA protection method
Contact Information