Platinum‐Based Electrocatalysts for Direct Alcohol Fuel Cells: Enhanced Performances toward Alcohol Oxidation Reactions

In the past few decades, Pt‐based electrocatalysts have attracted great interests due to their high catalytic performances toward the direct alcohol fuel cell (DAFC). However, the high cost, poor stability, and the scarcity of Pt have markedly hindered their large‐scale utilization in commerce. Therefore, enhancing the activity and durability of Pt‐based electrocatalysts, reducing the Pt amount and thus the cost of DAFC have become the keys for their practical applications. In this minireview, we summarized some basic concepts to evaluate the catalytic performances in electrocatalytic alcohol oxidation reaction (AOR) including electrochemical active surface area, activity and stability, the effective approaches for boosting the catalytic AOR performance involving size decrease, structure and morphology modulation, composition effect, catalyst supports, and assistance under other external energies. Furthermore, we also presented the remaining challenges of the Pt‐based electrocatalysts to achieve the fabrication of a real DAFC. Direct oxidation: This minireview gives a brief introduction of recent advances in Pt‐based nanostructures as cutting‐edge electrocatalysts for direct alcohol fuel cells (DAFCs). Our special emphasis is focused on the reasonable design of various Pt‐based electrocatalysts, such as decreasing the size, tuning the morphology and composition, and the effects of support materials.