Non Noble Metal Based Methanol Oxidation Reaction

Abstract

Direct methanol oxidation reaction is considered as one of the key technologies to meet newlinethe energy demands of everyday life. Till date, platinum or platinum-based materials have been newlinewidely investigated for direct methanol oxidation reaction due to their high electrochemical newlineproperties and stability. However, there are few bottlenecks like carbon monoxide poisoning newlineand high cost of platinum metal which hamper their use for practical applications. To overcome newlinethese limitations in this thesis, non-noble metal-based catalysts, namely nickel copper oxide, newlinenickel cobalt oxide and copper cobalt oxide electrocatalysts were synthesized and employed newlinefor direct methanol oxidation reaction. Further, the heteroatom boron was incorporated in the newlinenon-noble metal catalysts to induce oxygen and cation vacancies. In the first chapter, boron newlineincorporated nickel copper oxide was synthesized via a solution-based combustion technique. newlineIt is noted that the current density was enhanced ~2 folds after the incorporation of boron in newlinenickel copper oxide. It is worth mentioning that boron incorporated nickel copper oxide newlineelectrocatalyst follows an indirect pathway with formate formation as demonstrated by NMR newlinespectra and obtained a Faradaic efficiency of 36 %. In the second chapter, boron incorporated newlinenickel cobalt oxide catalyst was prepared by hydrothermal method and subsequently calcinated newlineat high temperature. The incorporation of boron induced oxygen vacancies in nickel cobalt newlineoxide and exhibited a remarkable current density with high stability than that of the pristine newlinecatalyst. The formation of oxygen vacancies was evidenced by XPS and ESR studies newline