Application of supported palladium towards the electrocatalytic oxidation of low molecular weight alcohol (methanol)

Abstract: In present scenario, direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) becoming more familiar and promising fuel cell due to its straightforward configuration system & weight and elevated power generation efficiency. This thesis focuses on metal nanoparticles based nanocomposite which is prepared by using in situ polymerization and composite formation (IPCF) technique and used for fuel cell application. The MNP-CP composite system was deposited on WE by drop and dry method. The integration of various nanomaterials is described, in order to understand the effect of different surface modifications and morphologies of various materials for electrooxidation of low molecular weight alcohols (C1-C4). In this work, IPCF approaches are the promising methods to fabricate the key building blocks of nanocomposites system for fundamental research. The entire work of the thesis contributes in the field of fuel cell by exploring the applicability’s of conductive polymer (CP) and metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) based nanocomposite systems. In general, potentiometric and amperometric electrochemical approach were employed to model the electrochemical performance of the CP-MNP. The CP-MNP composite were used to modify the working electrode (WE) i.e. glassy carbon electrodes (GCE). The intimate contact between CP and MNP in nanocomposites system were characterize by optical microscopic techniques such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), ultra-violet visible (UV) spectrophotometer, X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and photoluminescence (PL)...Ph.D. (Chemistry