Electrochemical Behaviors of Pt-Decorated 3D Network Architectures Based on Graphene Oxide and Melamine for Fuel Cells

Platinum (Pt)-based materials are known to be the most active catalysts for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). However, the low conductivity, poor stability, high cost and slow electron-transfer kinetics are the weakness of metal oxides as support materials for large-scale commercial applications^[1].

Thus, recent investigators have develop various pt based nanoparticles with desired nanostructure by chemical and physical methods such as Pt-supported on nanostructured carbonaceous materials such as Pt-carbon nanotube (pt/CNT), Pt-carbon black(Pt/CB), and Pt-graphene nanosheets (Pt/GN)^[2-4].

Recently, among kinds of nanostructured carbonaceous materials, Graphene or Graphene oxide (GO) have been widely explored. Graphene, a 2-D carbon material consisting of hexagonal sp²-hybridized monolayer, is layered materials with strong in-plane bonding and weak out-of-plane interactions. Graphene has given rise to intense interest with advaced materials due to its excellent physical and electronic properties.  In particular, in order to make the wide dipersion of Pt nanoparticles, three-dimensional (3D) architectures built from Graphene oxide (GO) have attracted intense interest due to its high surface and high volume^[5].

In this work, the novel hydrid support nanocomposite composed of Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) and Graphene was synthesized via an aqueous solution process of melamine and GO. In order to use the catalysts on the anode for DMFCs, Pt nanoparticles were deposited on the surface of the resultant 3D Pt/g-C₃N₄@RGO.

The Electrocatalytic activity of the resultant 3D Pt/g-C₃N₄@RGO was examined by cyclic voltammogram (CV). The potential range of CV was measured from -0.25 V to 1.0 V in 0.5M H₂SO₄ at a scan rate of 50 mV/s. The catalytic activities of 3D Pt/g-C₃N₄@RGO, Pt/reduced graphene oxide (RGO), and Pt/carbon black (CB) were compared. The 3D Pt/g-C₃N₄@RGO shows the higher current density than Pt/RGO, and Pt/C. From the results, the 3D-graphene having Carbon nitride (CN) stucture are more favorable for immorbilization of Pt noanoparticles than the pristine graphene.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Korea (Grant No.: NRF-2011-0009007).

 

References

[1] Y. Tan, C. Xu, G. Chen, N. Zheng, Q. Xie, Energy & Environmental  Science  5 (2012) 6923.

[2] A. Halder, S. Sharma, M. S. Hegde, and N. Ravishankar, J. Phys. Chem. C 113 (2009) 1466.

[3] S.Kim, S.J.Park , Electrochim. Acta 52 (2007) 3013.

[4] J.Y. Park, S. Kim, J. Electrochem. Soc., 161(4) (2014) F518.

[5] L. Jiang, Z. Fan, Nanoscale 6 (2014) 1922.