Study of Methanol‐tolerant Oxygen Reduction Reaction at Pt–Bi/C Bimetallic Nanostructured Catalysts

Abstract The nanostructured platinum–bismuth catalysts supported on carbon (Pt 3 Bi/C, PtBi/C and PtBi 3 /C) were synthesised by reducing the aqueous metal ions using sodium borohydride (NaBH 4 ) in presence of a microemulsion. The amount of metal loading on carbon support was found to be 10 wt.‐%. The catalyst materials were characterised by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), X‐ray fluorescence (XRF), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and electroanalytical techniques. The Pt 3 Bi/C, PtBi/C and PtBi 3 /C catalysts showed higher methanol tolerance, catalytic activity for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) than Pt/C of same metal loading. The electrochemical stability of these nano‐sized catalyst materials for methanol tolerance was investigated by repetitive cycling in the potential range of –250 to 150 mV MSE . Bi presents an interesting system to have a control over the activity of the surface for MOR and ORR. All Pt–Bi/C catalysts exhibited higher mass activities for oxygen reduction (1–1.5 times) than Pt/C. It was found that PtBi/C catalyst exhibits better methanol‐tolerance than the other catalysts.