Physical and electrochemical evaluation of commercial carbon black as electrocatalysts supports for DMFC applications

This work presents results with noble metal catalysts, Pt and PtRu supported on Black Pearl with a higher surface area in comparison with carbon black Vulcan XC-72R and Vulcan XC72. The nanoparticles were synthesized following the alcohol reduction method. Brunauer–Emmet–Teller (BET) surface area analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive analysis by X-rays (EDAX), and high resolution transmission electronic microscopy (TEM) experiments were carried out to characterize the materials obtained. Cyclic voltammograms (CV) of catalysts using the porous thin layer electrode technique were obtained for the catalysts surface evaluation and for methanol oxidation to check the electrocatalytic behavior of these nanocatalyst systems.