Platinum quantum dots enhance electrocatalytic activity of bamboo-like nitrogen doped carbon nanotubes embedding Co-MnO nanoparticles for methanol/ethanol oxidation.

Interaction of multi-active components can effectively maximize the overall catalytic ability of alcohol fuel cells. Herein, the self-assembled nitrogen doped carbon nanotubes (NCNTs) containing Co-MnO composite (Co-MnO/NCNTs) are successfully synthesized using dihydrodiamine as carbon and nitrogen source through one-step synthesis. In order to further improve the catalytic activity of Co-MnO/NCNTs for alcohol oxidation, small amounts of platinum quantum dots are uniformly loaded on Co-MnO/NCNTs formation of quaternary hybrid (named Pt/Co-MnO/NCNTs) during microwave reduction stage. Notably, the prepared Pt/Co-MnO/NCNTs hybrids possess the excellent methanol and ethanol oxidation mass current density of 1775.4 and 1112.8 mA mg in alkaline condition, which are 3.6 and 2.25 times higher than that of Pt/C catalysts, respectively. The current density of ethanol catalytic oxidation is lower than that of methanol, which may be due to the partial oxidation of acetyl (the intermediate product of ethanol) on the Pt (1 1 1) crystal surface. More importantly, CO oxidation experiments reveal that strong electronic synergistic effect between MnO and Pt quantum dot can greatly improve the CO anti-poisoning ability. Another significant advantage of Pt/Co-MnO/NCNTs is that low platinum loading leads to low cost effective, which demonstrates that the modification non-noble metal catalysts with a few noble metals quantum dots is a promising choice to mass produce high performance catalyst with remarkably boosting electrocatalytic activity for alcohol oxidation.