New insight into the pathways of methanol oxidation

Methanol electrooxidation at Pt(l 11) is extremely sensitive to the nature of the supporting electrolyte. Much lower currents for methanol oxidation are observed in H2SO4 than in HClO4 solutions, specific adsorption of sulfate being responsible for the inhibitory effect. While this effect is largely known, its fundamental consequences for the reaction mechanism were not evident till now. This is the subject of the present paper. The analysis of data on the yields of soluble products using both supporting electrolytes throws new light on the important question of the mechanism of parallel pathways during methanol oxidation reaction. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.