Simple preparation of Pt-Ni bimetallic catalysts and application to efficient oxidation reactions in direct lignin fuel cells

Direct lignin fuel cells (DLFC) have recently attracted much attention. However, there are few reports on preparing anodic catalytic layer for DLFC. Thereby, we loaded a small amount of platinum carbon (Pt/C) catalyst on the surface of nickel (Ni) foam by a simple roller pressing method, thus realizing the preparation of Pt-Ni/C bimetallic catalysts. The results proved the successful loading of the Pt/C catalyst onto nickel foam, and the catalyst particle size has an average size of 2.76 nm. The Pt-Ni/C catalysts not only have good oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity (154 mV overpotential@10 mA/cm 2 and tafel-slope of 44 mV/dec) but also have good lignin oxidation reaction (LOR) activity with a low overpotential of 247 mV at 10 mA/cm 2 . Pt-Ni/C catalysts were applied to DLFC at room temperature, showing an open-circuit voltage (OCV) of 0.84 V and a maximum power density of 0.62 mW/cm 2 . The optimum Pt/C loading was found to be 0.5 mg/cm 2 . The modified DLFC is comparable to glucose fuel cells' power generation performance and shows better application prospects.