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Silica veils-conductive diamond powder composite as a new propitious substrate for platinum electrocatalysts

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Abstract

An innovative composite was obtained by a straightforward sol-gel procedure, involving boron-doped diamond powder (BDDP) incorporation into a SiO2 veil (SiO2V) matrix. Composite-coated glassy carbon plates were used as substrate for Pt electrochemical deposition, and the electrodes thus obtained (Pt/BDDP–SiO2V) were compared on a relative basis with those prepared in the absence of the silica matrix (Pt/BDDP). SEM measurements have shown that a BDDP substrate promotes Pt cluster formation, whereas on BDDP–SiO2V, particles are much smaller (ca. 45 nm to ca. 140 nm). The activity for CH3OH oxidation was checked by cyclic voltammetry, and it was found that at Pt/BDDP–SiO2V, the main anodic peak is shifted with ca. 0.35 V toward lower potentials, indicating a considerable improvement in the overall process kinetics. Stripping experiments together with long-term polarization measurements demonstrated that when deposited on the BDDP–SiO2V support, Pt particles are less susceptible to CO poisoning and this behavior was tentatively ascribed to the presence of a higher relative surface concentration of more stable, oxidized platinum species, as evidenced by XPS.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS–UEFISCDI project number PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0272. POS-CCE O 2.2.1 project INFRANANOCHEM-Nr. 19/01.03.2009 funded by EU (ERDF) and the Romanian government is also gratefully acknowledged for the XPS and SEM equipment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physical Chemistry “Ilie Murgulescu”, 202 Spl. Independenţei, 060021, Bucharest, Romania

    Tanţa Spătaru, Crina Anastasescu, Ioan Balint, Petre Osiceanu, Cornel Munteanu & Nicolae Spătaru

  2. Tokyo University of Science, 1-3 Kagurazaka, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-8601, Japan

    Takeshi Kondo & Akira Fujishima

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  1. Tanţa Spătaru
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  2. Takeshi Kondo
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  3. Crina Anastasescu
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  4. Ioan Balint
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  5. Petre Osiceanu
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  6. Cornel Munteanu
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  7. Nicolae Spătaru
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  8. Akira Fujishima
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Correspondence to Nicolae Spătaru.

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Spătaru, T., Kondo, T., Anastasescu, C. et al. Silica veils-conductive diamond powder composite as a new propitious substrate for platinum electrocatalysts. J Solid State Electrochem 21, 1007–1014 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-016-3454-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-016-3454-6

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