Methanol, Formaldehyde, and Formic Acid Adsorption/Oxidation on a Carbon-Supported Pt Nanoparticle Fuel Cell Catalyst: A Comparative Quantitative DEMS Study - Fuel Cell Catalysis: A Surface Science Approach - page 404

& CHAPTER 13
Methanol, Formaldehyde, and Formic
Acid Adsorption / Oxidation on a
Carbon-Supported Pt Nanoparticle
Fuel Cell Catalyst: A Comparative
Quantitative DEMS Study
Z. JUSYS and R.J. BEHM
Institute of Surface Chemistry and Catalysis, Ulm University, D-89069 Ulm, Germany
13.1 INTRODUCTION
The electrocatalytic oxidation of small organic C 1 molecules has attracted considerable
interest in the last two decades, both from fundamental science aspects and because of
their potential application as energy carriers in fuel cells, such as direct methanol fuel
cell (DMFCs) and direct formic acid fuel cells (for reviews, see Lamy et al. [1983];
Parsons and VanderNoot [1988]; Sun [1998]; Jarvi and Stuve [1998]; Feliu and
Herrero [2003]). The electro-oxidations of formaldehyde and formic acid are of
direct interest also for the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) in DMFCs, since it
has repeatedly been demonstrated experimentally, both in studies on model systems
[Gromyko et al., 1976; Petukhova et al., 1977; Ota et al., 1984; Shibata and Motoo,
1986; Shibata et al., 1987; Iwasita and Vielstich, 1986; Korzeniewski and Childers,
1998; Childers et al., 1999; Wang et al., 2001a, b; Jusys and Behm, 2001; Jusys
et al., 2002a, b, 2003; Batista et al., 2003; Gao et al., 2004; Jambunathan et al.,
2004] and in measurements at the exhaust of an operating DMFC [Wasmus
et al., 1995; Lin et al., 1997; Sanicharane et al., 2002; Tkach et al., 2004; Seiler
et al., 2004; Neergat et al., 2006], that these incomplete methanol oxidation products
are produced as reaction intermediates or side products during methanol oxidation.
A close connection between methanol oxidation and formaldehyde and formic acid
oxidation had already been predicted in the classical reaction scheme of Bagotzky