Oxygen Vacancy-Rich CeO2 Quantum Dots Boost the Activity and Durability of Pt/C for Methanol Oxidation and Oxygen Reduction Reactions

Modifying the structure and composite of commercial Pt/C to improve the activity and durability can effectively promote the development of direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). Herein, we demonstrated the effective regulation in the electrocatalytic property of the Pt/C catalyst by ultrasonic mixing with oxygen vacancy-rich CeO2 quantum dots (QDs). The interaction between well-dispersed CeO2 QDs and Pt/C regulated the electronic structure of Pt on the Pt-CeO2 interface to supply more catalytically active sites and provided rich oxygen vacancies in CeO2 QDs to benefit the adsorption and transfer of oxygen-containing species. As the result of combining CeO2 QDs, the CeO2-Pt/C catalyst exhibited the significant enhancement in mass activity of about 3.65 and 3.82 times as compared with the Pt/C catalyst for methanol oxidation and oxygen reduction reactions correspondingly. The incorporation with CeO2 QDs also enhanced the durability for Pt/C with better preservation in activity. Therefore, above results contributed to the deep understanding of the interaction of Pt and CeO2 QDs and also suggested a facile CeO2 QD mixing strategy for the better commercialization of Pt/C in DMFCs.