Estudo da atividade eletrocatalítica de multicamadas metálicas de Ir/Pt e Cu/Pt eletrodepositadas sobre Pt(policristalina) para eletrooxidação de moléculas orgânicas pequenas

Abstract

The search for alternative energy sources stead fossil fuel has driven the development of new energy generating devices. Among these, the Direct Alcohol Fuel Cells are a kind of device that directly convert chemical energy into electricity from short chain alcohols. However, it is necessary to develop electrodes with high catalytic activity. Several materials composed by Pt have been proposed in the literature in different metallic binary and tertiary compositions Metallic Multilayer (MM) systems. In this dissertation, were fabricated MM electrodes containing deposits of thin alternating layers of Ir/Pt, PtIr/Pt and Cu/Pt, all above Pt polycrystalline by chronoamperometry. We have used the technique of Factorial Design for screening the following variables: intermediate and external layers thickness and composition of the intermediate layers. For the electrooxidation of ethylene glycol, the structure that showed the highest electrocatalytic effect was Pt/Ir3.0/Pt3.0 (3.0 is the thickness of each layer in monolayers) that shows an increase of peak current density of 175% and lower activation energy about 26.2 kJ mol-1. Electrooxidation was monitored by FTIR in situ and was observed an increase of 255% on CO production of species during electrooxidation and anticipation in the process of formation of CO2 by 100 mV. The proposed structures for Cu/Pt MM were not formed, which was confirmed by AFM images, but clustered in grain, and the electrode Pt/Cu1,5/Pt9,0 grew by 78% in the peak current density in the electrooxidation methanol and also shift 200 mV to cathodic potentials in CO electrooxidation. Although these studies have not reached a definitive explanation, though the results were added to the dissertation.