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Enhanced Methanol Electro‐Oxidation Activity of Nanoclustered Gold
Author(s) -
Yadav Anupam,
Li Yejun,
Liao TingWei,
Hu KuoJuei,
Scheerder Jeroen E.,
Safonova Olga V.,
Höltzl Tibor,
Janssens Ewald,
Grandjean Didier,
Lievens Peter
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.202004541
Subject(s) - materials science , tin oxide , density functional theory , deposition (geology) , cluster (spacecraft) , methanol , chemical engineering , nanoscopic scale , electrode , adsorption , tin , nanotechnology , oxide , chemical physics , chemistry , computational chemistry , metallurgy , organic chemistry , paleontology , sediment , computer science , engineering , biology , programming language
Size‐selected 3 nm gas‐phase Au clusters dispersed by cluster beam deposition (CBD) on a conducting fluorine‐doped tin oxide template show strong enhancement in mass activity for the methanol electro‐oxidation (MEO) reaction compared to previously reported nanostructured gold electrodes. Density functional theory‐based modeling on the corresponding Au clusters guided by experiments attributes this high MEO activity to the high density of exposed under‐coordinated Au atoms at their faceted surface. In the description of the activity trends, vertices and edges are the most active sites due to their favorable CO and OH adsorption energies. The faceted structures occurring in this size range, partly preserved upon deposition, may also prevent destructive restructuring during the oxidation‐reduction cycle. These results highlight the benefits of using CBD in fine‐tuning material properties on the nanoscale and designing high‐performance fuel cell electrodes with less material usage.