Synthesis and electrochemical properties of porous Pt wire electrodes for methanol electro-oxidation

We have fabricated macroporous Pt wire electrodes via electroplating by using polycarbonate membranes with the pores filled with polystyrene colloidal crystals. The macroporous structure of the resulting Pt wire electrodes is the inverse replica of the colloidal crystal templates. Scanning electron microscopy, Transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction analysis show the successful formation of macroporous Pt wire electrodes. The catalytic activity of methanol electro-oxidation on the resulting macroporous Pt-wire electrodes due to the three dimensional continuous porous structures is 21.0 mA/cm² at 0.718 V, which is 3.8 times higher that of the dense Pt wire electrodes, 5.4 mA/cm², obtained without use of the colloidal crystals as templates. The chronoamperometry results demonstrate that the macroporous Pt wire electrodes exhibit superior catalytic stability as compared with the dense Pt wire electrode and the commercial Pt/C catalyst.