Synthesis of Reduced Graphene Oxide-Supported PtAu Catalysts and Their Electrocatalytic Activity for Formic Acid Oxidation

In this paper, we demonstrate a one-pot synthesis of a reduced graphene oxide (RGO)-supported freely assembled binary alloy catalyst (PtAu/RGO) under alkaline conditions. The synthesized PtAu/RGO catalyst was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (pXRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). It was found that graphene oxide (GO) was successfully reduced to RGO. The PtAu nanoparticles exhibited an alloyed structure with an average diameter of approximately 3.60 ± 0.20 nm and were uniformly distributed across the RGO surface. Furthermore, the electrocatalytic activity of the catalyst for formic acid (FA) oxidation was examined, and it exhibited better catalytic activity for the FA oxidation reaction.