The development of cheaper and easier to manufacture direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC) is an important step towards a methanol economy, and towards a reduced dependence on fossil fuels. Platinum plays a crucial role as a catalyst in DMFC devices but is expensive, is prone to CO poisoning, and suffers from other significant disadvantages when used as a monometallic catalyst. Block copolymers (BCP) offer an effective and accessible means of constructing thin layer multi-metallic catalysts with tunable nanomorphologies. While the loading of single metals onto BCPs has been proven, the ability to precisely load two or more metals at a desired ratio with a high degree of repeatability is of importance if this technology is to make it to large scale manufacturing. Through the characterization of device arrays via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission and scanning electron microscopy (TEM and SEM) the Rider group hopes to build a standardized model for tuning metal ratios in bimetallic nanoparticles.

Reliable synthesis of block copolymer templated bimetallic nanoparticles

255th National Meeting (2018)

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