Enhanced methanol oxidation performance on platinum with butterfly-scale architectures: toward structural design of efficient electrocatalysts

Abstract

Enhanced methanol oxidation performance was achieved by combining elaborate butterfly-scale architectures into platinum electrocatalysts using an electroless deposition-detemplating method. The electrochemically active surface area and the forward peak current density for methanol oxidation were dramatically increased by 5 and 5.2 times, respectively, for lamellar-ridge architectured Pt compared to its unarchitectured counterpart. Excellent mass transport properties and efficient catalytic surface accessibility were further demonstrated by finite element simulation.