UC Irvine

Fuel cells can potentially become a practical solution for solving the emerging energy crisis. Platinum nanoparticles are used as electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction. Many synthesis methods exist that produce platinum nanoparticles supported by carbon support. The goal for synthesis is to increase its performance and reduce its loading. In this paper, we successfully synthesized Pt nanoparticles within 2.09 ± 0.76 nm range with the alternating current method. With this one-step, top-down method, Pt nanoparticles were produced by simply applying the square wave potential to the Pt wire without adding any additional chemicals. Besides, the rotating disk electrode (RDE) measurements suggest this method has a possibility to increase the performance of the Pt nano catalyst.

Moreover, we explored the mechanism of the generation of nanoparticles and proposed the critical potential range for this method. And we first reported the Pt formation in neutral and acid electrolyte.