Electro-oxidation of formic acid on composites from polycarbazole and WO3

Direct oxidation of formic acid (FA) is reported in the present work on a low-cost, noble metal-free WO3 embedded polycarbazole nanocomposite (PCz-WO3) electrocatalyst. Nano WO3 component used herein is synthesized by a facile coprecipitation method and then various PCz nanocomposites are synthesized at the interface of two immiscible liquids by introducing different amounts of nano WO3 during the polymerization of an optimized amount of carbazole monomer. Further, these materials are used as an active material to modify commercially available glassy carbon electrodes (GCE) and then applied for the electro-oxidation of FA at ambient conditions. It is observed that due to optimal synergism between PCz and nano WO3, PCz-WO3/4 nanocomposite exhibits improved electro-activity with direct oxidation dominated FA oxidation at the lowest potential in comparison to other counterparts and earlier reported works.