Study of electro-oxidation of ethanol on the carbon-ceramic substrate modified with platinum and platinum-cobalt alloy nanoparticles

In the present project, the electrooxidation of ethanol at the surface of carbon-ceramic modified with Pt and Pt-Co alloy nanoparticles were studied. The carbon- ceramic electrode was prepared by using of sol-gel technique [1] and the surface of this electrode was modified with Pt and Pt-Co alloy nanoparticles by the potentiostatic one step method. The obtained electrocatalysts was characterized by XRD, SEM and electrochemical methods and was used for the electrooxidation of ethanol in 0.1M H2SO4 solution. The Pt-Co/CCE catalyst, which has excellent electrocatalytic activity for ethanol oxidation than the Pt nanoparticles carbon-ceramic modified electrode (Pt/CCE) and smooth Pt electrode, shows great potential as less expensive electrocatalyst for these fuels oxidation [2]. These results showed that the presence of Co in the structure of catalyst and application of CCE as a substrate greatly enhance the electrocatalytic activity of Pt towards the oxidation of ethanol. The effect of various factors such as upper limit potential, scan rate, ethanol concenteration, and etc, on the oxidation of ethanol were studied.The effect of different parameters that can affect the oxidation of ethanol is studied. The optimum concentration for ethanol electrooxidation was 1.5 M.