Galvanostatic Pulse Plating of PtRu Nanoparticles for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

A galvanostatic pulse electrodeposition technique of preparing nanoparticulate PtRu electrocatalyst for direct methanol fuel cells has been demonstrated. After extensive cyclic voltammetric analysis, we determined the optimized parameters for the methanol oxidation to be current on-time on 50 ms, current off-time of 400 ms, current density of 50 mA/cm2, and total charge of 8.0 C/cm2. In addition, the catalyst loading was measured at 68 µg/cm2, resulting in a mass activity of 213 mA/Pt．mg. The composition for the nanoparticles was confirmed as Pt65Ru35. High-magnification images on the specimen indicated fine particles in 4-20 nm with uniform distributions. PtRu has attracted considerable attention as an anode electrocatalyst for direct methanol fuel cells [1]. Recently, the research objective for the PtRu has concentrated on the synthesis in nanoparticulate form with desirable atomic distributions in both bulk and surface states. Conventional synthetic route involves chemical reduction technique