TiO2-SnO2/SO42- mesoporous solid superacid decorated nickel-based material as efficient electrocatalysts for methanol oxidation reaction

A nickel-based material, Ni(II)-TiO2-SnO2/SO42-, was synthesized by the sol-gel and thermal decomposition methods. The structures of the catalysts were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravi-metric analysis (TG), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and infrared spectroscopy of adsorbed pyridine (Py-IR). The electrochemical performance was investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry (CA). The electrochemical results showed that TiO2SnO2-3%/SO42- mesoporous solid superacid could significantly improve the electrocatalytic properties of nickel-based catalysts for methanol oxidation. In addition, the electrochemical results demonstrated that Ni(II)-TiO2-SnO2-3%/SO42- catalyst exhibited certain stability for methanol electrooxidation, which renders the as synthesized material a potential electrocatalyst for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.