Accurate Assessment of the Oxygen Reduction Electrocatalytic Activity of Mn/Polypyrrole Nanocomposites Based on Rotating Disk Electrode Measurements,Complemented with Multitechnique Structural Characterizations

This paper reports on the quantitative assessment of the oxygen reduction reaction (orr) electrocatalytic activity of electrodeposited mn/polypyrrole (ppy) nanocomposites for alkaline aqueous solutions,based on the rotating disk electrode (rde) method and accompanied by structural characterizations relevant to the establishment of structure-function relationships. the characterization of mn/ppy films is addressed to the following: (i) morphology,as assessed by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (fe-sem) and atomic force microscope (afm); (ii) local electrical conductivity,as measured by scanning probe microscopy (spm); and (iii) molecular structure,accessed by raman spectroscopy; these data provide the background against which the electrocatalytic activity can be rationalised. for comparison,the properties of mn/ppy are gauged against those of graphite,ppy,and polycrystalline-pt (poly-pt). due to the literature lack of accepted protocols for precise catalytic activity measurement at poly-pt electrode in alkaline solution using the rde methodology,we have also worked on the obtainment of an intralaboratory benchmark by evidencing some of the time-consuming parameters which drastically affect the reliability and repeatability of the measurement. � 2016 patrizia bocchetta et al.