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Updated: May 15, 2026
Electrochemical Roughening of Thin-Film Platinum Macro and Microelectrodes
Published on: June 30, 2019
Roughening of Pt nanoparticles induced by surface-oxide formation
Tianwei Zhu1, Emiel J M Hensen, Rutger A van Santen
1Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Using density functional theory (DFT) and thermodynamic considerations we studied the equilibrium shape of Pt nanoparticles (NPs) under electrochemical conditions. We found that at very high oxygen coverage, obtained at high electrode potentials, the experimentally-observed tetrahexahedral (THH) NPs consist of high-index (520) faces. Since high-index surfaces often show higher (electro-)chemical activity in comparison to their close-packed counterparts, the THH NPs can be promising candidates for various (electro-)catalytic applications.
