Facile and green synthesis of a surfactant-free Au clusters/reduced graphene oxide composite as an efficient electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction

In this work, a well-dispersed Au cluster/reduced graphene oxide (RGO) composite was synthesized using citric acid (CA) as a reducing and binding agent. The as-prepared composite was systemically characterized by TEM, XPS, TGA and FTIR. TEM image showed Au clusters uniformly distributed on the RGO sheet with an average size of 1.8 nm. The Au clusters/RGO composite exhibited excellent catalytic performance for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Moreover, the electrocatalytic comparison indicated that the long-term durability and methanol tolerance of this composite was superior to the commercial Pt/C catalyst. Therefore, such a composite might be an alternative and more promising non-Pt electrocatalyst for fuel cells.