Facile Fabrication of Pt-Ru Nanoparticles Immobilized on Reduced Graphene Oxide Support for the Electrooxidation of Methanol and Ethanol

This study demonstrates a convenient methodology for the decoration of Pt-Ru nanoparticles (with various morphologies like Pt-on-Ru and Ru-on-Pt) on graphene sheets. The structure, composition and morphological features of the synthesized electrocatalysts were assessed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and cyclic voltammetry (CV). TEM analysis revealed that the Pt-Ru nanoparticles were uniformly dispersed on graphene sheets with a narrow size particle distribution. The corresponding morphology-dependent activity of electrocatalysts towards two important anodic reactions relevant to fuel cell applications like methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) and ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) were systematically studied by CV. The results showed that Pt-on-Ru/RGO electrocatalysts exhibited higher catalytic activity and better stability compared to Ru-on-Pt/RGO, Pt/RGO and commercial Pt-Ru/C catalysts towards both MOR and EOR. Furthermore, the simple synthetic strategy demonstrated here can be extended to other bimetallic systems with improved properties for fuel cell reactions.