Preparation and Characterization of Platinum-Decorated Ru/C Catalyst with High Performance and Superior Poison Tolerance

A platinum-decorated Ru/C catalyst with high platinum utilization efficiency, high performance, and high poisoning tolerance was prepared using a two-stage impregnation reduction method. We found that for anodic methanol oxidation the catalyst activity in terms of the Pt load was 1.9 and 1.5 times as that of Pt/C and PtRu/C alloy catalysts, respectively. These values are also higher than that of the commercial JM PtRu/C catalyst. The electrochemically active surface area of Ru@Pt/C was found to be 1.6 and 1.3 times as those of Pt/C and PtRu/C alloy catalysts, respectively. Furthermore, we found that the ratio of the forward peak current density (I-f) to the backward peak current density (I-b) reached 2.4, which was 2.7 times as that of the Pt/C catalyst. This implies that the Pt-decorated Ru/C catalyst possesses a high tolerance for the intermediate poisoning species. In addition, the stability of Ru@Pt/C was higher than that of Pt/C, PtRu/C alloy and JM PtRu/C. The catalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The core-shell structure of the catalyst was determined by XRD and TEM. The high performance and high poisoning tolerance of Ru@Pt/C during the anodic oxidation of methanol make it a promising electrocatalyst for direct methanol fuel cells.