Electrochemical fabrication of Pt-Au-WO3 electrodes for direct methanol fuel cell

INOR 195

Jae-Hoon Ahn, hoon1215@empal.com1, Jin-Kyu Lee, shawn-jin@hanmail.net1, Dong-Woo Kim, noboy2@hanmail.net1, Gil-Pyo Kim1, Sung-Hyeon Baeck, shbaeck@inha.ac.kr1, Alan Kleiman-Shwarsctein2, and Eric W McFarland2. (1) Department of Chemical Engineering, Inha University, 253 Yonghyun-dong, Nam-gu, Incheon, South Korea, (2) Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Pt-Au-WO3 electrodes were synthesized by electrochemical method for methanol oxidation. Pt-Au alloy with various compositions was deposited onto thin layer of WO3 electrodeposited from W-peroxo complex. Film composition was controlled by deposition voltage, deposition time and relative concentration of Pt and Au in electrolyte. Morphology and compositional analysis of the synthesized films were investigated by scanning electron microscopy(SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy(EDS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS). The catalytic activity for methanol oxidation and stability of the film deposited were measured using cyclic voltammetry(CV) and chronoamperometry(CA) in 0.5M H2SO4/0.5M CH3OH solution. The activity and stability of methanol oxidation were found to be strongly dependent on film composition. Compared with pure Pt electrode, it was observed that the addition of small amount of Au and WO3 significantly improved both catalytic activity and stability for methanol oxidation.
 

Electrochemistry
7:00 PM-10:00 PM, Sunday, 10 September 2006 Moscone Center -- Hall D, Poster

Division of Inorganic Chemistry

The 232nd ACS National Meeting, San Francisco, CA, September 10-14, 2006