One-pot synthesis of a RGO-supported ultrafine ternary PtAuRu catalyst with high electrocatalytic activity towards methanol oxidation in alkaline medium

In this paper, we report a facile, eco-friendly, one-pot method for the synthesis of a reduced graphene oxide (RGO) supported PtAuRu alloy nanoparticle catalyst (PtAuRu/RGO) by simultaneous reduction of H2PtCl6, HAuCl4, RuCl3 and graphene oxide (GO) using ethanol as the reduction agent. The as-formed PtAuRu/RGO catalyst has been characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and induced coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). It is found that the PtAuRu nanoparticles formed alloy structures about 3.09 +/- 0.73 nm in diameter and are evenly distributed on the RGO surface. The reduction degree of GO together with metal precursors is higher than that of only GO. Moreover, electrochemical measurements reveal that the electrocatalytic activity and stability of the PtAuRu/RGO catalyst for the methanol oxidation reaction are superior to those of PtAu/RGO, PtRu/RGO and Pt/RGO catalysts. These findings suggest that the prepared PtAuRu/RGO catalyst has great potential for use in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs).