A novel catalyst support for DMFC: Onion-like fullerenes

Onion-like fullerenes (OLFs) were employed as the support for Pt in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). A Pt/OLFs catalyst was synthesized by an impregnation–reduction method. Its structure and morphology were characterized by XRD, HRTEM and XPS. The Pt nanoparticles uniformly dispersed on OLFs had an average diameter of 3.05 nm, compared to 4.10 nm in Pt/Vulcan XC-72 prepared by the same method. XPS analysis revealed that Pt/OLF contained mostly Pt(0), with traces of Pt(II) and Pt(IV). Cyclic voltammetry showed that the real surface area of the Pt/OLFs was larger than Pt/XC-72 and the electrocatalytic activity of the Pt/OLFs catalyst, from the peak current value at around 0.78 V, outperformed the Pt/Vulcan XC-72 by about 20% in the electrooxidation of methanol.