Methanol oxidation in acidic and alkaline electrolytes using PtRuIn/C electrocatalysts prepared by borohydride reduction process

PtRuIn/C electrocatalysts (20% metal loading by weight) were prepared by sodium borohydride reduction process using H₂PtCl₆(6H₂O, RuCl₃(xH₂O and InCl₃(xH₂O as metal sources, borohydride as reducing agent and Carbon Vulcan XC72 as support. The synthetized PtRuIn/C electrocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive analysis (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperommetry (CA) and polarization curves in alkaline and acidic electrolytes (single cell experiments). The XRD patterns show Pt peaks are attributed to the face-centered cubic (fcc) structure, and a shift of Pt (fcc) peaks indicates that Ru or In is incorporated into Pt lattice. TEM micrographs show metal nanoparticles with an average nanoparticle size between 2.7 and 3.5 nm. Methanol oxidation in acidic and alkaline electrolytes was investigated at room temperature, by CV and CA. PtRu/C (50:50) shows the highest activity among all electrocatalysts in study considering methanol oxidation for acidic and alkaline electrolyte. Polarization curves at 80°C show PtRuIn/C (50:25:25) with superior performance for methanol oxidation, when compared to Pt/C, PtIn/C and PtRu/C for both electrolytes. The best performance obtained by PtRuIn/C (50:25:25) in real conditions could be associated with the increased kinetics reaction and/or with the occurrence simultaneously of the bifunctional mechanism and electronic effect resulting from the presence of Pt alloy.