High Pt loadings dispersed on MWCNTs by spontaneous reduction and intermittent microwave heating assisted polyol reduction

This paper reports intermittent microwave heating (IMH) combine with spontaneous is used to prepare highly dispersed Pt/FCNTs catalysts. At first, CNTs were functionalized by oxidation of a mixture consisting of H₂SO₄/H₂O₂ and formed oxygen containing functional groups such as -COOH, -OH, etc., by which the metal ions (Pt4+) were reduced on the sidewalls of FCNTs. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results showed that the Pt particles were highly dispersed on the support and had a narrow particle distribution with a mean particle size of about 4-5 nm. Cyclic voltammetry demonstrated that the novel technique synthesized Pt/FCNTs catalysts exhibited higher catalytic activity for ORR at room temperature than a commercial Pt/C catalyst. The significant improvement in electrocatalytic activity was due to that the novel technique synthesized Pt nanoparticles was uniform in size and well dispersed on the surface of carbon nanotubes.