Electrocatalytic performance of Pd/PANI/TiO2 nanocomposites for methanol electrooxidation in alkaline media

An electrochemical method was successfully used for the Pd nanoparticles deposition on the Polyaniline/titanium dioxide (PANI/TiO2) modified glassy carbon (GC) electrode. The electrochemical activity of fabricated palladium/Polyaniline/titania (Pd/PANI/TiO2) electrocatalyst was investigated for methanol electrooxidation by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperomtery (CA) in alkaline media. Also, the effect of different methanol concentrations and potential sweep rates were in two separate set of experiments. The prepared samples were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) techniques. Obtained results indicated that the synthesized Pd/PANI/TiO2 catalyst not only possessed much higher electrochemically active surface area (EASA) than that of the pure Pd catalyst, but also enhanced the forward anodic peak current density (J(f)) for methanol electrooxidation reaction. These observations are extracted from the combination of high charge transfer of the PANI/TiO2 nanocompsites and excellent catalytic characteristic of the Pd catalyst.