Synthesis of highly ordered and graphitized mesoporous carbon materials and Pt/mesoporous carbon catalyst for methanol electro-oxidation

Highly ordered mesoporous carbon materials can be directly synthesized via one step templating route, using resol as a carbon precursor, triblock copolymer Pluronic F127 as a template agent and metal salt NiCl₂ as an additive of catalytic graphitization. X-ray diffraction (XRD), raman and transmission electron microscope (TEM) show that nickel particles are in the carbon structure in forms of metal nickel and the sample has the higher graphitization degree with ordered mesoporous structure. Under the condition of 700°C and 5 wt% nickel content, we can find plentiful graphitic carbon surrounding Ni particle from the HRTEM photos. The electrocatalytic activity of carbon supported Pt nanoparticles was verified by cyclic voltammetry in H₂SO₄ and CH₃OH solution. Carbon material with higher graphitization degree can enhance its electrocatalytic activity. Pt nanoparticles supported on the carbon material which contains five percent of Ni showed the best performance. Its electrochemical active surface area for hydrogen oxidation was 24.840 M² • g^-1 and the peak current of methanol oxidation was 3.92 mA.