PtBi intermetallic and PtBi intermetallic with the Bi-rich surface supported on porous graphitic carbon towards HCOOH electro-oxidation

Well-dispersed PtBi intermetallic and PtBi intermetallic with Bi-rich surface supported on the porous graphitic carbon have been synthesized by using hydrogen gas to reduce the Pt and Bi precursors. TEM images indicated that the simple and clean method can effectively synthesize those PtBi intermetallics with uniform dispersion and small size (below 3 nm) on the porous graphitic carbon. Electrochemical characterization revealed that PtBi intermetallic with Bi-rich surface showed extremely high mass activity and stability towards oxidizing of formic acid. Combining precursors' melt-diffusion strategy with the following effective reduction by the hydrogen gas, the proposed method is easy to scale up and has promising potential for synthesizing anode electro-catalyst of direct formic acid fuel cells. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.