Engineering Commons^™

Effect Of Titanium Dioxide Supports On The Activity Of Pt-Ru Toward Electrochemical Oxidation Of Methanol, Roderick E. Fuentes, Brenda L. García, John W. Weidner

Faculty Publications

TiO₂and Nb-TiO₂ were investigated as stable supports for Pt-Ru electrocatalysts towards methanol oxidation. X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS) data for all these TiO₂-based supports show oxidation states of Ti⁴⁺, with no Ti³⁺, suggesting low electronic conductivity. However, the deposition of metal nanoparticles onto the supports at loadings of 60 wt% metal dramatically increased conductivity, making these electrodes (metal particles + support) suitable for electrochemistry even though the supports have low conductivity. For some of these TiO₂-based supports, the activity of Pt-Ru towards methanol oxidation was excellent, even surpassing the activity …