Bi-Co-Cu Metal Oxide Foam as Significant Electrocatalyst for Methanol Electrooxidation

Transition metals and metal oxides are carrying out vibrant role in electrooxidation of methanol. Unfortunately, the unclear cognition of methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) mechanism hampers the development of high performance electrocatalysts. Thus, in this report, a fascinating MOR mechanism has been studied using CoCuBi oxide foam structure, where the (220) plane of CoCuBi oxides are playing an exciting role in an unprecedented mechanism. Interestingly, the (220) plane belongs to the families of plane, where transition metal oxides prefer Eley-Rideal (ER) mechanism with concomitant reduction in the poisoning effect due to CO. The synergetic effect of these planes triggers the excellent current density of 118 mA/cm² with 50% retention of activity even after 10 h stability test. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies revealed different oxidation states of metal ions indicating formation of mixed oxides along with different phase formation in CoCuBi foam structure. More excitingly, CoCuBi nanocomposites show remarkable electrochemical methanol oxidation to form specific product such as formate, which is strongly confirmed by proton NMR spectroscopy.