Open AccessClean and Reproducible Voltammetry of Copper Single Crystals with Prominent Facet-Specific Features Using Induction Annealing
Author(s) -
Stefan J. Raaijman,
Nakkiran Arulmozhi,
Alisson H. M. da Silva,
Marc T. M. Koper
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of the electrochemical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.258
H-Index - 271
eISSN - 1945-7111
pISSN - 0013-4651
DOI - 10.1149/1945-7111/ac24b9
Subject(s) - copper , annealing (glass) , facet (psychology) , electropolishing , materials science , cyclic voltammetry , crystallite , electrochemistry , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemistry , metallurgy , electrode , electrolyte , chromatography , big five personality traits , psychology , social psychology , personality
Although copper is widely used as an electrocatalyst for the CO 2 reduction reaction, often little emphasis is placed on identifying exactly the facet distribution of the copper surface. Furthermore, because of differing surface preparation methodologies, reported characaterization voltammograms (where applicable) often vary significantly between laboratories, even for surfaces of supposedly the same orientation. In this work, we describe a surface preparation methodology involving the combination of induction annealing and well-documented electrochemical steps, by which reproducible voltammetry for copper surfaces of different orientations can be obtained. Specifically, we investigated copper surfaces of the three principal orientations: {111}, {100} and {110}, and a representative polycrystalline surface. We compared these surfaces to surfaces reported in the literature prepared via either electropolishing or UHV-standard methodologies, where we find induction preparation to yield improvements in surface quality with respect to electropolished surfaces, though not quite as good as those obtained by UHV-preparation.