, vol. 12, pp. 7890 – 7910, 2017.
The present study reports the use of mono- and binary-metal thin film deposits of Pt, Cu, Ru and Pd
dispersed over carbon electrode as electro-catalysts for oxygen reduction. The metals are sequentially
electrodeposited on the carbon electrode from their aqueous solutions using the potentiostatic
technique. The electrode surface characterization was carried out by scanning electron microscopy
(SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersed X-ray (EDX). The micrographs of SEM
analyses showed that the thin films of the various deposits are located at the electrode surface in the
nano-scale range. Linear sweep voltammetry was used to investigate the electrode performance
towards oxygen reduction in H2SO4 solution in the absence and presence of H2O2. The results
indicated that metal deposits and platinum-metal modified carbon electrodes have shown superior
electro-catalytic activity toward oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) as shown by the relative increase in
the peak current density values of oxygen reduction.