Electrochemical Reduction of Uniformly Dispersed Pt and Ag Nanodots on Carbon Fiber Electrodes

Abstract EN

Electrochemical characterization of the uniformly dispersed Pt and Ag nanodots synthesized after in situ scalable electron-beam reduction on copper grid and carbon-fiber electrode is demonstrated.

By employing plasma pretreatment to produce functional organosilicon micronetworks-based reaction sites on copper grid, the size and standard deviation of the electrochemically reduced metallic nanodots can be strictly confined.

When detuning the accelerating voltage of electron-beam from 3 to 120 kV, the reshaped nanodot diameter enlarges from 12.7±0.8 to 18.3±3.6 nm due to the gradual self-aggregation.

In comparison with sputtering method, the electroactivity of Pt nanodot covered carbon fiber electrode obtained after electron-beam reduction exhibits a larger electroactive surface (Spt) of 16.56 cm2/mg.

The electron-beam reduction provides a better dispersion of the reduced Pt nanodots based catalysts on carbon-fiber electrode, promoting the utilization efficiency of these nanoscale catalyst (defined as the ratio of electroactive to geometric area) from 2.5% to 7%.