Applied Research Of Conductive Polymer PAMT In Energy Electrochemistry

Conductive polymer thin films, as a kind of electrode modifiers, have beenwidely used in the fields such as electrocatalysis and electroanalysis. This thesisaims to explore the applications of poly（2-amino-5-mercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole）（PAMT） in the energy electrochemistry, as a novel electrode material both for directmethanol fuel cells and for supercapacitors. The PAMT has been concerned in thefield of electroanalysis in recent years.The electrocatalytic performance of conductive polymer films leads to theirimportant applications in fuel cells. Both the solid carbon paste electrode （sCPE）and PAMT are first used as the substrates to deposit Pt, with an aim of improvingelectrocatalytic activity of Pt towards methanol oxidation. Electrodeposition ofplatinum is performed on four carbon-based supports: bare glassy carbon electrode（GCE）, bare sCPE, and PAMT-coated GCE and sCPE, respectively, for thecomparison of electrocatalytic activity. Scanning electron microscopy shows thatchestnut bur-like Pt particles with numerous nanothorns are deposited on all thesupports by controlling deposition potential and time, and the particles on thePAMT film supported on the both substrates are found in two size fractions （<1mand2–3m）. According to the hydrogen desorption charge of cyclic voltammetry,obtain the area of electrochemical activity of Pt particles, the higher the value, themore conducive to enhancing the electrocatalytic activity of Pt, voltammetric dataindicate that both the sCPE and the PAMT contribute to increase electrochemicalactive area of Pt catalyst and therefore have a positive effect on Pt’s electrocatalyticactivity, in comparison with the GCE and the uncoated supports, respectively.Moreover, impedance spectroscopy reveals that the sCPE-supported PAMTfacilitates the electron transfer kinetics of methanol oxidation, whereas theGCE-supported PAMT gives an opposite effect on the electron transfer. This workshows that the solid carbon paste is superior to glass carbon for use in combinationwith a conducting polymer as a support of Pt electrocatalyst.Both conducting polymers and transition metal oxides have been studied fortheir good performances and application prospects as supercapacitor’s materials.Combination of the two materials is expected to be one of the measures to improvethe specific capacitance. Solid carbon paste electrode is used as the substrate electrode to deposit PAMT and MnO₂using cyclic voltammetry （CV）. The specificcapacitances of the prepared composite electrodes are calculated from the CVcharges in sulfuric acid supporting electrolytes. A series of factors, such as themonomer concentration, the manganese sulfate concentration, the pH of theelectrolytes, the range of the potential scans, scan rate and cycle number, areoptimized in order to enhance the supercapacitor performance. The results showthat the prepared PAMT and manganese dioxide composite electrode has somesupercapacitor performance.