Enhanced Platinum-Based Thin-Film Catalysts for Electro-Oxidation of Methanol

Surface morphology is one of the critical factors affecting the performance of electrocatalysts. Thus, with careful manipulation of the surface structures at the atomic level, the effectiveness of the catalyst can be significantly improved. Heat treatment is an effective method for inducing surface atom rearrangement, hence modifying the catalyst's characteristics. This study investigated the substrate's influence and the effect of thermal annealing on the morphology and surface reconstruction of platinum (Pt) thin-film catalysts. Our findings indicate that heat treatment in a reductive atmosphere (95% Ar + 5% H₂) at 300 °C can significantly impact the degree of rearrangement of surface atoms. This process induces long-range ordering, resulting in domains with a high proportion of (111) and (100) sites without an epitaxial template. Considering that the reactivity of low-index platinum single crystals for the methanol oxidation reaction follows the following sequence Pt(111) < Pt(110) < Pt(100), increasing the proportion of (100) planes leads to a notable enhancement (up to three times) in performance, compared to untreated catalysts. Furthermore, considering the amount of precious metal consumed, a mass-specific current density obtained on annealed Pt@Ni is larger by one order of magnitude and ~2 times that obtained on Pt@Cr and Pt@GC_ox catalysts, respectively. Our results demonstrate that an easy-to-implement way of controlling atomic orientations improves catalyst performance. With this contribution, we propose a method for designing improved electrocatalysts, as catalytic reactions occur only at the surface.