Platinum nanoparticles supported on pore-arrayed tungsten trioxide as electrocatalyst for methanol oxidation

Pore-arrayed WO3 (p-WO3) was fabricated by using polystyrene spheres as templates and used as the support for platinum nanoparticles to prepare a new electrocatalyst (Pt/p-WO3) for methanol oxidation. The structure of p-WO3 and Pt/p-WO3 was characterized with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), tunnel electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), and its electrocatalytic activity toward methanol oxidation was investigated with cyclic voltammetry (CV). The characterizations from SEM, TEM and XRD show that the platinum particles with an average size of 3.3 nm have been successfully distributed on the support p-WO3. The results from CV indicate that Pt/p-WO3 exhibits good electrocatalytic activity toward methanol oxidation.