PEDOT Nanowires and Platinum Nanoparticles Modified Electrodes to be Assayed in Formic Acid Electro-oxidation

In the current work, the formic acid electro-oxidation process was studied and, to favor the electro-catalysis, platinum nanoparticles dispersion over PEDOT polymeric deposits in the form of nanowires was accomplished. To this end, the previously tested methodology, that allowed direct obtention of polythiophene nanowires on the electrode by purely electrochemical means, is proposed. Here, the EDOT electro-oxidation on Pt|template, electrodes allowed obtaining PEDOT nanowires with a diameter of 6.7 nm, suggesting that the method could be extended to the preparation of other conductive polymer nanowires. Therefore, trying to compare and improve the HCOOH electro-oxidation process on PEDOT nanowires, with respect to studies already performed with polythiophene massive deposits or as nanowires, Pt was dispersed utilizing previously proposed approach and found that nanometer-sized PEDOT material obtained with Pt dispersed nanoparticles markedly favor HCOOH electro-oxidation causing a current response increase, as well as a decrease of the acid oxidation potential. Thereby this electrode material represents an important contribution for future applications in the preparation of fuel cells, enabling lower energy consumption and increase of electrical energy production