Electrocatalytic Oxidation of Methanol, Ethanol and Formic Acid

Detailed investigations of CH

3

OH, C

2

H

5

OH, and HCOOH electrooxidation started about five decades ago, with the advent of modern potentiodynamic techniques, driven initially by the goal of elucidating some of the most interesting and challenging electrode kinetic problems. Many pioneering studies that withstood the test of time and the continuous sophistication of surface electrochemistry techniques were published in the 1960s by Petry, Bagotzky, Daniel-Bek, Breiter, and others [1–14]. Important results were obtained, such as: (i) phenomenological interpretation of anodic polarization curves (e.g., determination of Tafel parameters for CH

3

OH oxidation on Pt [3], C

2

H

5

OH oxidation in alkaline media on Ni and Pd/C [4], HCOOH oxidation on Pd [6] and Pt/C [7]); (ii) discovery of the cocatalytic effect of Ru with respect to Pt for CH

3

OH oxidation [1, 8]; (iii) investigation of the potential dependent adsorption of CH

3

OH and HCOOH on Pt and the associated parallel (or dual) pathway mechanism [9–12]; and (iv) mathematical modeling of flooded porous electrode behavior [13, 14].