Stabilization of Embedded Pt Nanoparticles in the Novel Nanostructure Carbon Materials

An extremely durable and highly active Pt catalyst has been successfully prepared by embedding Pt(0) nanoparticles inside the pores of the nitrogen-dotted porous carbon layer surrounding carbon nanotubes (Pt@NC-CNT). The Pt@NC-CNT catalyst has a high BET surface area of 271 m(2) g(-1) (62 m(2) g(-1) for Pt/XC-72) and comparably high electrochemically active surface area of 64.3 m(2) g(-1) (68.2 m(2) g(-1) for Pt/XC-72). The prepared Pt nanoparticles are small in size (2.8 ± 1.3 nm) and have a strong interaction of nitrogen to platinum, as evidenced by the binding energy observed at 399.5 eV. The maximum current densities (I(f)) during methanol oxidation observed for Pt@NC-CNT (13.2 mA cm(-1)) is 1.2 times higher than that of Pt/XC-72 (10.8 mA cm(-1)) catalysts. Remarkably, in the long term durability test, the I(f) after 1000 cycles for Pt@NC-CNT decreased to 10.6 mA cm(-1) compared with Pt/XC-72, which decreased to 2.6 mA cm(-2). This means that the Pt@NC-CNT catalyst has a tremendously stable electrocatalytic activity for MOR because of the unique structure of Pt@NC-CNT formed in this novel synthesis technique.