Electrochemical fabrication of platinum nanoflakes on fulleropyrrolidine nanosheets and their enhanced electrocatalytic activity and stability for methanol oxidation reaction

Pyridine-functionalized fulleropyrrolidine nanosheets are prepared by a fast reprecipitation method under ultrasonication, and used as a novel nanostructured support materials to fabricate Pt catalyst nanoflakes by a simple electrodeposition approach. The as-prepared novel Pt-fullerene hybrid catalyst (Pt/PyC60) exhibits much enhanced electrocatalytic activity and stability for methanol oxidation reaction compared to the unsupported Pt nanoflakes and commercial Pt/C. The introduction of nanostructured fulleropyrrolidine as new support materials not only increases the electrochemically active surface area of catalyst, but also significantly improves the long-term stability. This will contribute to developing functionalized fullerenes as new nanostructured support materials for advanced electrocatalysts in fuel cells. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.