Pt Supported on Carbon-coating Antimony Tin Oxide as Anode Catalyst for Direct Methanol Fuel Cell

A qualified support material for Pt must has numerous deposition sites for Pt nanoparticles and great electrical conductivity. Metal oxide materials are potential support materials for Pt nanoparticles. However, they have less deposition sites for Pt and worse electronic conductivity than carbon. Carbon over the surface of metal oxide materials can improve the above shortage. In this paper, antimony tin oxide (ATO) coated by carbon layer has been successfully prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition method (PECVD). PECVD can provide a brief approach to enwrap metal oxide with carbon at low temperatures. Besides, it becomes easier to control the amount of carbon by the PECVD to create much more two-phase interface for Pt deposition. The carbon layer promotes the electronic conductivity of ATO and provides more deposition sites for platinum nanoparticles, which directly influence the size of Pt nanoparticles as well as the electrochemical active surface areas. The as-prepared catalyst exhibits excellent activity for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR), which is twice of that of the commercial Pt/C catalyst. Meanwhile, it has better stability than the commercial Pt/C.