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Piece by Piece—Electrochemical Synthesis of Individual Nanoparticles and their Performance in ORR Electrocatalysis
Author(s) -
Evers Mathies V.,
Bernal Miguel,
Roldan Cuenya Beatriz,
Tschulik Kristina
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201813993
Subject(s) - nanoreactor , nanoparticle , electrocatalyst , electrode , materials science , electrochemistry , micelle , catalysis , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , chemistry , organic chemistry , aqueous solution , engineering
Abstract The impact of individual HAuCl 4 nanoreactors is measured electrochemically, which provides operando insights and precise control over the modification of electrodes with functional nanoparticles of well‐defined size. Uniformly sized micelles are loaded with a dissolved metal salt. These solution‐phase precursor entities are then reduced electrochemically—one by one—to form nanoparticles (NPs). The charge transferred during the reduction of each micelle is measured individually and allows operando sizing of each of the formed nanoparticles. Thus, particles of known number and sizes can be deposited homogenously even on nonplanar electrodes. This is demonstrated for the decoration of cylindrical carbon fibre electrodes with 25±7 nm sized Au particles from HAuCl 4 ‐filled micelles. These Au NP‐decorated electrodes show great catalyst performance for ORR (oxygen reduction reaction) already at low catalyst loadings. Hence, collisions of individual precursor‐filled nanocontainers are presented as a new route to nanoparticle‐modified electrodes with high catalyst utilization.