Rational design of PdRu/TiO2 composite material for advancing electrochemical catalysis of methanol oxidation

Rational design of the durable catalysts is an important issue for improving the application performance of synthesized electrocatalysts for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). In this work, mesoporus Pd6Ru4/TiO2-1 composite catalyst is prepared by using two-step reaction. Compared with 20%Pd/C, PdRu, Ru/TiO2-1, and Pd/TiO2-1 catalysts, Pd6Ru4/TiO2-1 catalyst has several merits of abundant electrochemical surface areas, excellent electrocatalytic activity and long-term-use stability. Ru doping into Pd/TiO2-1 greatly optimizes the electronic structure of Pd by decreasing its electron density. Pd6Ru4/TiO2-1 also exhibits high turnover number (TON), low activation energy (Delta Ea) values for MOR, and higher tolerance to CO-poisoning. A satisfactory level of methanol conversion to the final products is validated by chromatographic results. Density functional theory (DFT) calculation could deepen the understanding of excellent tolerance to CO-poisoning.