Uniform Pt Nanoparticles Incorporated into Reduced Graphene Oxides with MoO3 as Advanced Anode Catalysts for Methanol Electro-oxidation

Abstract Pt nanoparticles (NPs) were uniformly deposited on the reduced graphene oxides (RGOs) by one-pot thermoreduction strategy with assist of MoO 3 . MoO 3 can significantly reduce the size of Pt NPs on RGOs. These Pt NPs can be averaged to be 3.0 to 4.1 nm with MoO 3 loading from 27.4 to 8.8%. Without MoO 3 , the size of Pt NPs can reach up to 15.2 nm. In addition, MoO 3 in Pt-MoO 3 /RGO catalysts conducts a surface-confined reversible electron transfer. And the Pt-MoO 3 /RGO catalysts show strong resistance to CO poisoning and high activity towards methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). Among these Pt-based catalysts, Pt-MoO 3 /RGO catalysts with 16.5% MoO 3 loading possess a largest MOR current up to 610 mA mg −1 Pt with a smallest deteriorate rate of 0.000425 s −1 polarizing for 5000 s at 0.65 V. These results demonstrate commercial feasibility for Pt catalysts to reduce significantly the amount of precious metals Pt in parallel to maintain a high MOR activity and CO tolerance.