Carbon monoxide electrooxidation on porous Pt–Ru electrodes in sulphuric acid

CO electrooxidation on a Pt–Ru/C catalyst was investigated in sulphuric acid electrolyte. The physico-chemical properties of the Pt–Ru/C catalyst were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The influence of temperature, CO partial pressure and proton concentration on the electrochemical oxidation rate was investigated by steady-state galvanostatic polarization measurements. The apparent activation energy decreased from 70 to 30kJmol–1 as the overpotential increased from 0.5 to 0.9V vs NHE. The reaction order with respect to carbon monoxide increased, passing from 0.4 to 1, with the increase of the overpotential from 0.5 to 0.7V vs NHE; a reaction order close to –1 with respect to the protonic concentration was observed, irrespective of the potential. Tafel slopes of about 136mVdec–1 were determined for oxidation of CO and CO/N2 mixtures.