Beef-derived mesoporous carbon as highly efficient support for PtRuIr electrocatalysts and their high activity for CO and methanol oxidation

Abstract

In this work, a low-cost and nitrogen-containing carbon with mesoporous pores and high surface area was synthesized by carbonizing a natural biomass precursor, i.e. beef. It is found that the prepared material has excellent textural properties such as high specific surface areas and large pore diameters. TEM images showed that the PtRuIr nanoparticles were well dispersed on the surface of carbonized beef (C-Beef). PtRuIr/C-Beef was highly active for methanol electro-oxidation. PtRuIr/C-Beef showed superior catalytic activity to PtRuIr/C, i.e. lower onset potential and higher oxidation current density. Cyclic voltammograms of CO electro-oxidation showed that PtRuIr/C-Beef catalyst was kinetically more active for CO electro-oxidation than PtRuIr deposited on conventional carbon support. The highly porous structure and low cost of carbonized beef can be widely used as support for highly dispersed metal nanoparticles to increase their electrochemical performance as electrocatalysts.