A review of anode catalysis in the direct methanol fuel cell

In this paper, more than 100 articles related to anode catalysts for the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) are reviewed, mainly focusing on the three most active areas: (1) progress in preparation methods of Pt-Ru catalysts with respect to activity improvement and utilization optimization; (2) preparation of novel carbon materials as catalyst supports to create a highly dispersed and stably supported catalysts; (3) exploration of new catalysts with a low noble metal content and non-noble metal elements through fast activity down-selection methods such as combinatorial methods. Suggested research and development (R&D) directions for new DMFC anode catalysis are also discussed. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.