Alcohol electrooxidation reactions in alkaline media are of great significance in fuel cell development. In this thesis, catalysts with high activity and stability performance are designed and relevant mechanisms are preliminarily proposed for alcohol electrooxidation reactions. Relevant characterisations of Pd-based electrocatalysts were achieved to study the morphology and composition such as SEM, TEM, EDS and XRD. Tetrahexahedral (THH) Pd nanocrystals (NCs) were directly electrodeposited on the glassy carbon (GC) electrode via a square-wave programme. The synthesized THH Pd NCs exhibit higher activity than bulk Pd for alcohol (ethanol, methanol and ethylene glycol) electrooxidation reaction. The kinetics data were obtained by Arrhenius plots and compared between bulk Pd and THH Pd NCs. Bi adatoms were modified on THH Pd NCs for ethanol electrooxidation reaction (EOR) in alkaline medium at various temperatures and under other conditions that practical fuel cells operate. The general kinetics data of EOR on Bi-decorated and bare THH Pd NCs have also I been obtained, from the activation energy calculated based on Arrhenius plots, and compared. Pd-ATO Ti mesh with high activity and cyclic stability was tested for EOR in alkaline media. The morphology and crystalline structure of Pd-ATO Ti mesh were investigated by SEM and XRD. PdMn02- C with high activity performance was explored for methanol electrooxiation (MOR) in alkaline media. Pd-Mn02-C was obtained by hydrothermal method and its morphology was investigated by TEM. Our work has explored novel catalysts for alcohol electrooxidation in alkaline media and investigated kinetics data in order to infer reaction mechanism. It is hoped that all these work could have a little help for fuel cell development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:675482 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Ping, Wang |
| Publisher | Queen's University Belfast |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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