Abstract—Metal nanocatalysts, as the anodic materials, have become increasingly important in fuel cells, due to their unique physical and chemical properties. Here, the porous silica was employed as a hard template to prepare the ordered mesoporous carbon (CMK-3). The as-prepared CMK-3 has a large surface area of 877 m²/g and the hierarchical porous structure with the pore size distribution centered at 3.7 nm. The CMK-3 supported silver nanocatalysts have been prepared through the wet chemical reduction by using the reduction of formaldehyde. The electrochemical properties of the Ag/CMK-3 nanocatalysts for formaldehyde oxidation are studied by cyclic voltammerry (CV) and chronoamperometric curves (i-t) in alkaline aqueous solutions. The results show that the peak current density (CV) of the Ag/CMK-3 electrode is 112 mA/cm², above 2 times higher than that of Ag/XC-72 at the same Ag loading (14.15 μg/cm²). Furthermore, i-t curves demonstrate that the Ag/CMK-3 nanocatalysts are efficient and stable electrocatalysts for anodic oxidation of formaldehyde in alkaline solutions. Therefore, Ag/CMK-3 nanocatalysts with the improved electrocatalytic activity suggest their application potential towards fuel cells and sensors.

Index Terms—Nan catalysts; Ag nanoparticles; ordered mesoporous carbon; formaldehyde electro oxidation.

Ling-Bin Kong is with State Key Laboratory of Gansu Advanced Non-ferrous Metal Materials, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730050, P. R. China (e-mail: konglb@ lut.cn).
Long Kang is with School of Materials Science and Engineering, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730050, P. R. China (e-mail: kongl@ lut.cn).

Cite: Ling-Bin Kong, Ru-Tao Wang, Xiao-Wei Wang, Zhen-Sheng Yang, Yong-Chun Luo, and Long Kang, "Electrooxidation of Formaldehyde on Silver/Ordered Mesoporous Carbon Composite Electrode in Alkaline Solutions," International Journal of Applied Physics and Mathematics  vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 5-9, 2011.