DYNECAT · Microscopic Surface Dynamics of Pt and Pt Alloy Electrocatalysts under operation conditions
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2015-04-01 → 2017-03-31
- EU contribution
- €165,599
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Microscopic Surface Dynamics of Pt and Pt Alloy Electrocatalysts under operation conditions
Fuel cell is a promising solution towards the urgent issues of energy and environment in modern society, which produces energy in a mild and efficient way from fossil fuel. However, it has been found that the platinum-based electrocatalyst degrades during the operation of fuel cell, which highly limits the performance and life time of fuel cell. The degradation is thought to be from the over-oxidation of platinum-based electrocatalyst of the cathode. The project is aiming to understand the degradation of Pt-based on the operation conditions by characterizing the surface morphology and surface species at the intermediate stage of electrochemical oxidation.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
By employing the in-situ electrochemical video-rate scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) at well-defined single crystal electrodes, we are going to study the surface dynamics of the atoms on Pt(111), Pt(553), Pt(533), Pt(111)-Cu and Cu/Pt(111) surface alloy in the absence and presence of oxygen gas, with the aim to probe and understand the restructuring of Pt and Pt alloy catalyst of the fuel cell cathodes under the operation conditions. Simultaneously, in-situ electrochemical surface Raman spectroscopy will be used to identify the surface species and their interaction with electrodes, using a version employing shell-isolated nanoparticles that is suitable for single-crystal electrodes. On the basis of the observations of STM and Raman spectroscopy, theoretical calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) and Monte Carlo simulations will be carried out to understand the surface electronic structures and to mimic dynamical migrations of the surface atoms. This should yield deep insight into the essential dynamic properties and the impact on the restructuring of these electrocatalysts under operation conditions.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN · LeidenCoordinatorNetherlands
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union