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Published on: December 6, 2021
Probing Size and Substrate Effects on the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction by Single Isolated Pt Atoms, Atomic Clusters,
Min Zhou1, Shujuan Bao1, Allen J Bard1
1Center for Electrochemistry, Department of Chemistry , The University of Texas at Austin , Austin , Texas 78712 , United States.
Abstract:
We report the catalytic activity of a single, isolated Pt deposit on Bi and Pb supports to probe the size and substrate effects on the electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Deposits were made electrolytically by an atom-by-atom method in a controlled plating; we prepared an individual Pt deposit on Bi and Pb ultramicroelectrodes (UMEs) such as a single isolated atom, clusters containing one to five Pt atoms, and nanoparticles to about 10 nm radius. A steady-state voltammogram on the single Pt deposits is observed by electrocatalytic amplification of the HER, with a negligible contribution by the HER at the substrate UME. A single Pt atom can act as an electrode for the HER, showing a diffusion-limiting current plateau in the voltammogram that can be used to estimate the radius of a single deposit. We simulated the voltammograms of the individual deposits, assuming the Volmer step of the HER is appropriate for a Pt cluster deposit, to obtain kinetic parameters for each deposit. The HER kinetics increases as the particle radius increases from ∼0.2 to ∼4 nm for Bi and Pb substrates and then reaches a limiting plateau. The limiting kinetics on the Bi substrate approaches that of bulk Pt while that on the Pb substrate is much smaller.
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