Pt/Ru-Sn Oxide/Carbon Catalysts for Ethanol Oxidation

Mixed Ru-Sn oxides have been deposited onto a high surface area carbon support by thermal decomposition of Ru and Sn acetylacetonate (acac) complexes. Adsorption of preformed Pt nanoparticles produced catalysts with enhanced low potential activity for the oxidation of ethanol in aqueous sulfuric acid at ambient temperature and in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) cell at 80 degrees C. Varying the oxide composition between Ru0.38Sn0.62O2 and Ru0.67Sn0.33O2 did not influence the catalyst's activity greatly but did increase stability in the sulfuric acid solution. Higher stability was observed in the PEM cell, where a Pt/Ru0.55Sn0.45O2/C anode provided much higher currents than a commercial Pt/C catalyst for ethanol oxidation at low potentials. Anodes for direct ethanol fuel cells can be fabricated by coating a carbon fibre paper backing layer consecutively with carbon black, Ru(acac)(3) + Sn(acac)(2), and Pt nanoparticles, with appropriate thermal processing. (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published on behalf of The Electrochemical Society by IOP Publishing Limited. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse of the work in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.