Electrocatalytic oxidation of methane in an acidic electrolyte using PdMn/C-ITO electrocatalysts synthetized by sodium borohydride reduction process

Abstract

Pd/C-ITO and PdMn/C-ITO electrocatalysts with different atomic ratio (90:10, 70:30 and 50:50) were synthetized by borohydride reduction method and characterized by X-ray diffraction, Transmission electronic microscopy and electrochemical studies (cyclic voltammetry). The electrochemical studies showed that PdMn(50:50)/C-ITO had superior performance for electrochemical oxidation of methane in an acidic electrolyte at 25 oC compared to others electrocatalysts prepared. The experiments in a single DMEFC also showed that the PdMn(70:30)/C-ITO electrocatalyst exhibited higher performance for methane oxidation in comparison with Pd/C-ITO, PdMn(90:10)/C-ITO and PdMn(50:50)/C-ITO electrocatalysts. These result indicated that the addition of Mn to Pd favor the electrochemical oxidation of Methane in acid medium, where this effect could be attributed to the synergy between the constituents of the binary electrocatalysts or to electronic modification of Pd atoms by the neighboring Mn atoms as the proximity of Pd and Mn atoms on the surface of the C-ITO (bifunctional mechanism - the presence of Pd and Mn oxides species).