Synthesis of carbon supported PdSn electrocatalysts in alkaline media

Direct alcohol fuel cells (DAFCs) have received much attention from research academia because of their importance as alternative sources of energy. In this study PdSn8/C PdSn10 /C PdSn10.3 PdSn10.7/C PdSn11/C and PdSn14/C (23 wt%) electrocatalysts on Vulcan XC72 carbon powder were prepared by impregnation reduction method and studied for the reaction of methanol and ethanol electrooxidation in an alkaline medium. The samples were characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The electrochemical characterization was performed using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry (CA). It is found that for methanol and ethanol electrooxidation PdSn10.7/C exhibited higher electrochemical performance than the commercial Pd/C. This realized high performance could be attributed to the generation of OH- species by Sn at lower potential.