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Electrochemical Designing of Au/Pt Core Shell Nanoparticles as Nanostructured Catalyst with Tunable Activity for Oxygen Reduction
Author(s) -
Zhai Junfeng,
Huang Minghua,
Dong Shaojun
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
electroanalysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.574
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1521-4109
pISSN - 1040-0397
DOI - 10.1002/elan.200603728
Subject(s) - underpotential deposition , cyclic voltammetry , electrochemistry , redox , electrode , monolayer , nanoparticle , electrocatalyst , catalysis , rotating disk electrode , materials science , voltammetry , chemistry , inorganic chemistry , chemical engineering , analytical chemistry (journal) , nanotechnology , organic chemistry , engineering
Au/Pt core shell nanoparticles (NPs) have been prepared via a layer‐by‐layer growth of Pt layers on Au NPs using underpotential deposition (UPD) redox replacement technique. A single UPD Cu monolayer replacement with Pt(II) yielded a uniform Pt film on Au NPs, and the shell thickness can be tuned by controlling the number of UPD redox replacement cycles. Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in air‐saturated 0.1 M H 2 SO 4 was used to investigate the electrocatalytic behavior of the as‐prepared core shell NPs. Cyclic voltammograms of ORR show that the peak potentials shift positively from 0.32 V to 0.48 V with the number of Pt layers increasing from one to five, suggesting the electrocatalytic activity increases with increasing the thickness of Pt shell. The increase in electrocatalytic activity may originate mostly from the large decrease of electronic influence of Au cores on surface Pt atoms. Rotating ring‐disk electrode voltammetry and rotating disk electrode voltammetry demonstrate that ORR is mainly a four‐electron reduction on the as‐prepared modified electrode with 5 Pt layers and first charge transfer is the rate‐determining step.