Graphene-carbon nanotube composite aerogel with Ru@Pt nanoparticle as a porous electrode for direct methanol microfluidic fuel cell

A Ru@Pt core–shell nanoparticles decorated graphene-carbon nanotube composite was produced as a porous anode for a flow-through direct methanol microfluidic fuel cell (MFC). The composite was characterized by TEM and SEM, which reveals that the size of the nanoparticles is less than 5 nm and the pore size of the porous electrode is less than 10 µm. TEM image showed that the nanoparticles were evenly distributed in the carbon substrate without agglomeration. The carbon nanotubes (CNT) increased the composite conductivity by connecting the graphene oxide nanosheets together. An orthogonal flow air-breathing microfluidic fuel cell combining the advantages of co-flow and counter flow MFC was designed to compare the electrode performances and a maximum specific power of 13.1 mW/mg catalyst was achieved with 1 M methanol in 1 M KOH as supporting electrolyte, which outperformed most others’ works in the literature.