Ethanol electro-oxidation on Pt/C and Pd/C catalysts in alkaline media

Recently, increasingly attentions have been paid to the electro-oxidation of ethanol in alkaline media in the context of using ethanol as a fuel in anion-exchange membrane fuel cell. Alkaline media presents several advantages compared to acidic media. It has been found that the electrocatalytic activity for etanol oxidation in alkaline media is much higher than that in acidic media [1]. Furthermore, the selectivity for ethanol electrooxidation to CO2 could be improved significantly in alkaline media [2]. More importantly, from a material point of view, besides Pt, a much wider range of electrode materials are stable in alkaline environment [3], which could be used as catalysts for direct ethanol fuel cell.