Electrocatalytic potential of sulfonated polypyrrole-supported Ni-Ag towards methanol oxidation in acidic medium

Abstract

Bimetallic Ni-Ag alloy nanostructures with different ratios of Ni and Ag, prepared through a simple co-reduction process from the respective precursor metal salts, were employed as the electrocatalysts toward methanol oxidation reaction in acidic electrolyte. The previously reported superior catalytic performance exhibited by deposited Ni catalyst on sulfonated polypyrrole (SPPy) matrix is encouraging enough to further utilize SPPy as a support matrix and Ni as a primary metal catalyst. In this work, the activity of the synthesized Ni based catalyst was strongly dependent on the composition of the Ni-Ag/SPPy catalyst systems. The best performance was obtained upon utilizing a Ni:Ag ratio of 80:20. For example, this Ni-Ag (80:20)/SPPy catalyst system exhibited a higher area specific current density, a stable current density, a higher IF/IB ratio and a better single cell DMFC performance in acidic electrolyte, than that of the other prepared catalyst systems, and also, the state-of-the-art Pt-Ru on C. © 2016 IEEE.