THE DIRECT OXIDATION OF METHANOL AT PLATINUM BASED CATALYTIC ELECTRODES - WHAT IS NEW SINCE 10 YEARS

Methanol is one of the best candidates as fuel in fuel cell systems for terrestrial applications. However, the development of Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) have been limited during a long period by problems mainly related to poisoning phenomena which led to a decrease of the cell performances. Since 10-15 years, significant progresses were made in the understanding of the electrooxidation of methanol. For example, with the availibility of new 'in situ' spectroscopic methods, it is now well accepted that adsorbed CO is the poisoning species. Electrodes of well-defined structure (such as single crystals) allow correlations between the activity of the electrode and its surface structure to be made. All these new results bring new insights in the mechanism of methanol electrooxidation and let to think that new improvements in the DMFC could be expected for the next few years.