Effect of Co-Ni Ratio in Graphene Based Bimetallic Electro-catalyst for Methanol Oxidation

In this paper the electro-catalytic oxidation of methanol is studied on the non-noble catalysts Ni–Co/graphene. The bimetallic electro-catalyst was prepared with different Co–Ni ratios by using simple solution synthesis method. The synthesized materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for their structure and morphological changes. The electro-catalytic activity of Ni–Co/graphene for methanol oxidation was investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) on glass carbon electrode (GCE) in alkaline medium with 1M methanol solution. The results of various electro-catalysts have shown significant electro-oxidation towards methanol. Increasing the Ni concentration in catalyst has promoted the oxidation reaction at the Co–Ni/graphene catalyst. This study reveals that the low-cost electro-catalyst Ni–Co/graphene has great potential for DMFC applications.