Performance of sea water supported Pt–Sn–Mg/C catalyst for membraneless fuel cells

Abstract

 The present work reports the performance of Pt–Sn–Mg/C ternary electrocatalysts on ethanol oxidation reaction in membraneless fuel cells prepared by thermal reduction method. A systematic investigation of ethanol adsorption and oxidation on binary and ternary electrocatalysts in sea water was performed in membraneless ethanol fuel cells. The different nominal compositions of binary Pt–Sn/C, Pt–Mg/C, and ternary Pt–Sn–Mg/C electrocatalysts were characterized by XRD, EDX, and TEM techniques. XRD and

EDX confirmed the formation of Pt–Sn–Mg/C, Pt–Sn/C, and Pt–Mg/C metal catalyst with a typical Pt crystalline structure and the formation of Pt–Sn alloy. Electrochemical analyses obtained at room temperature by cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry showed that Pt50Sn40Mg10/C gives a greater current density in comparison to that of Pt50Sn30Mg20/C, Pt50Sn25Mg25/C, Pt50Sn50/C, and Pt50Mg50/C. The power density obtained using Pt50Sn40Mg10/C (39.2 mW cm-2) as an anode catalyst in membraneless ethanol fuel cell was higher than that using Pt50Sn30Mg20/C, Pt50sn25Mg25/C, Pt50Sn50/C, and Pt50Mg50/C at the room temperature. CO poisoning can be reduced as a result of enhanced cell performance by the addition of Mg on the anode electrocatalysts. In this study, the carbon-supported binary Pt–Sn, Pt–Mg, and ternary Pt–Sn–Mg anode catalysts were successfully tested in a single membraneless fuel cell using 1.0 M ethanol and 0.5 M H2SO4 as the fuel and 0.1 M sodium perborate in sea water as the oxidant.