The influence of Ir and Pt1Ir1 structure in metallic multilayers nanoarchitectured electrodes towards ethylene glycol electro-oxidation

This paper presents a study of the electro-oxidation of ethylene glycol (EG) at metallic multilayer electrodes: Ptpc/Irx/Pty (Ptpc = polycrystalline Pt, x and y denote the number of monolayers of Ir intralayer and Pt outer layer, respectively) and Ptpc/(Pt1Ir1)x/Pty (ie a 1:1 alloy of Pt and Ir was employed as intralayer). For comparison, data are also presented for Ptpc. Although Pt and Ir have similar crystallographic structures, the work reported shows for the first time that the electrocatalytic properties of the Pt outer layer are affected significantly by the composition of the intralayer. The voltammetry data show that the Ptpc/Ir3.0/Pt3.0 metallic multilayer electrode exhibits a peak current density 78% higher than that observed using Ptpc, in agreement with activation energy measurements on the electro-oxidation of EG which showed: Ptpc/Ir3.0/Pt3.0 (26 kJ mol−1) < Ptpc (44 kJ mol−1) < Ptpc/(Pt1Ir1)3.0/Pt3.0 (46 kJ mol−1). The FTIR experiments showed that the main products for the oxidation of the diol at the electrodes are similar: COL, CO2 and glycolic and/or oxalic acid over Ptpc and Ptpc/Ir3.0/Pt3.0 metallic multilayer electrodes. However, significantly more CO2 and COL were observed at Ptpc/Ir3.0/Pt3.0 compared to Ptpc electrodes.