Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, Vol.200, 114-120, 2017
Exponential improving in the activity of Pt/C nanoparticles towards glycerol electrooxidation by Sb ad-atoms deposition
Tuning the chemical composition of heterogeneous nanocatalysts has emerged as an efficient strategy to improve their electroactivity and selectivity for electrolizers and fuel cells application. The stability of a catalyst is ascribed as the ability of the nanoparticles (NPs) in maintaining their chemical composition and physical structure during recycles of use. By an electrochemical procedure, here we'decorated platinum nanoparticles supported on carbon with different coverage degrees of antimony ad-atom (theta(sb)) to investigate glycerol electrooxidation reaction (GEOR). The successful decoration of Pt/C with Sb was monitored by electrochemical and physicochemical characterizations. theta(sb) is highly dependent on the upper potential applied. Sb atoms are rapidly leached from Pt surface in potentials greater than 0.7 V in acid solution while they remain stable during several cycles in potentials lower than that. We showed that the current density of GEOR exponentially increases with the increase of Sb coverage, reaching 109 times the pseudo stationary current density of Pt/C for high theta(sb). Furthermore, the ad-atom facilitates the reaction by shifting the onset potential towards lower potentials. We found an improvement of -320 mV in the onset for theta(sb) = 0.81. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Glycerol electrooxidation reaction;Electrochemical decoration;Antimony decorated platinum;Electroactive material;Electrochemical stability