Study on Effect of Carbon Surface Functionalization on Reduced Graphene Oxide Electrodes for Fuel Cells

Pt-deposited reduced graphene oxide (RGO) was prepared by a facile method with presence of dopamine hydrochloride in Tris-HCl buffer solution. The electrochemical and morphological property of Pt/(polydopamine (PDA) coated RGO) composite was studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). These results show that Pt/PDA/RGO hybrids exhibited not only excellent electrocatalytic active but also long-term stability for the oxidation of methanol in direct methanol fuel cells. In addition, platinum nanoparticles were deposited on the surface of the modified RGO without aggregation of metal catalyst compared to pure graphene oxide. These findings indicated that synthesized Pt/PDA/RGO could be promising candidate for catalyst electrodes in many different kinds of fuel cells.