Highly efficient electrode catalysts prepared with ordered nanoporous carbons with tunable pore sizes as catalyst supports

Ordered uniform nanoporous carbons with pore sizes in the range of 10-600 nm were synthesized against removable colloidal crystalline templates by carbonization of phenol and formaldehyde as a carbon precursor, The porous carbons have high surface areas, large pore volumes, and three-dimensionally interconnected uniform pore structures, and thus were used as a support of a Pt(50)-Ru(50) alloy catalyst to study their effect on the anodic performance of the catalyst in direct methanol fuel cell. The use of the ordered uniform porous carbon allowed higher degree of dispersion of the catalysts and efficient diffusion of reagents, resulting in much improved catalytic activity for methanol oxidation in the fuel cell. In general, the smaller pore sizes the porous carbons have, the higher surface areas and the better catalytic activity for methanol oxidation they showed.