The ethanol electrooxidation reaction at Pt (1 1 1): The effect of ethanol concentration

In this work, we investigate the effects of ethanol concentration on the pathways involving the formation of CO, CO2, acetic acid and acetaldehyde as electrooxidation products of ethanol for Pt (1 1 1). Voltammetric and spectroscopic results (FTIR in situ) show that the beginning of the oxidation pathways occurs at more anodic potentials when the ethanol concentration is increased, which corroborates those results previously founded for polycrystalline Pt and attest that ethanol adsorption is a self-poisoning process. Also, FTIR results suggest that the production of acetic acid can proceed by two distinct pathways, one of them being independent of the acetaldehyde formation.