Development of Graphene based Bimetallic (Co-Ni) Electro-Catalyst for Fuel Cell Applications /

Abstract

Carbon black was used as a support material for fuel cell but their properties doesn’t fulfil the requirements for the better electro-catalytic activity. However, graphene can overcome the main problem facing the non-precious electro-catalysts; low electro-catalytic activity. Usually platinum based electrode materials were used in direct methanol fuel cells but its commercialization becomes limited due to its high cost. In this paper the electro-catalytic oxidation of methanol is studied on the non-noble catalysts Ni-Co/graphene. The bimetallic electro-catalyst was prepared with different Co-Ni ratios such as Co1-Ni1 (0.5 mmol of cobalt and 0.5 mmol of nickel), Co1-Ni2 (0.3 mmol of cobalt and 0.6 mmol of nickel) and Co1-Ni4 (0.2 mmol of cobalt and 0.8 mmol of nickel) by using simple solution synthesis method. The synthesized materials are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The electro-catalytic activity of Ni-Co/graphene for methanol oxidation was investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) for DMFCs application.