Sustainable Electrooxidation of Bulk CO in the Hydrogen Region on Polyoxometalate-promoted Platinum Catalyst in Acid Environment

The electrooxidation of bulk CO and H2 in acidic media has been investigated on a polyoxometalate-promoted Pt-black microelectrode. Voltammetric and chronoamperometric measurements exhibit that introducing polyoxometalate enables the steady-state CO electrooxidation to proceed in the hydrogen region. Further H2 electrooxidation studies show that the polyoxometalate introduction has no negative impacts on the H2 oxidation kinetics. These facts are important for the development of polymer-electrolyte-membrane fuel cell technologies since operating the fuel cells with the reformate gas without the need of complicated H2 purification is likely, as well as addressing the catalyst CO-poisoning.