Ultradispersed platinum nanoclusters on polydopamine-functionalized carbon nanotubes as an excellent catalyst for methanol oxidation reaction

•Pt nanoclusters were uniformly dispersed on polydopamine-functionalized CNTs.•The tiny size of Pt nanoclusters was characterized by TEM, XRD and XPS techniques.•The Pt/PDA-CNT electrocatalyst exhibits excellent performance towards MOR. The poor electrocatalytic activity towards methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) and the extremely rare reserves of platinum are considered as two of the most severe obstacles which hinder the commercialization of direct methanol fuel cells. In this work, Pt nanoclusters (∼1.81nm), which are much smaller than Pt nanoparticles (∼3nm) in commercial Pt/C, have been uniformly dispersed on polydopamine-functionalized carbon nanotubes via a simple polyol method. These ultradispersed Pt nanoclusters feature large accessible active surface as well as high fraction of surface atoms with low coordination numbers, and therefore not only exhibit excellent mass activity and stability but also show improved specify activity and CO tolerance relative to Pt/C and Pt/CNT catalyst.