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Determining the Active Surface Area for Various Platinum Electrodes

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Abstract

Various methods, i.e., the adsorption/stripping of adsorbed probe species, such as hydrogen (H), copper (Cu), and carbon monoxide (CO), oxygen and hydroxide (O/OH), potentiostatic CO/H displacement as well as double layer capacitance are exploited to evaluate the electrochemically active surface areas (ECAs) of platinum (Pt) foils, chemically deposited Pt thin film, and carbon-supported Pt nanoparticle electrodes. For the relatively smooth Pt electrodes (roughness factor < 3), the measurements from the stripping of H, Cu, and CO adlayers and CO/H displacement at 0.08 V (vs. RHE) give similar ECAs. With the increase of the surface roughness, it was found that the ECAs deduced from the different methods have the order of CO/H displacement less than the stripping of under potential deposition (UPD) Cu monolayer less than the stripping of the UPD-H adlayer. Possible origins for the discrepancies as well as the applicability of all the abovementioned methods for determining ECAs of various Pt electrodes are discussed, and the UPD-Cu method is found to be the most appropriate technique for the determination of ECAs of Pt electrodes with high roughness factors or composed of nanoparticles with high dispersion.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the 100 Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of Science, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (project no. 20773116, 21073176) and the 973 Program from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (project no. 2010CB923302).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Physics, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Dong Chen, Qian Tao, Ling Wen Liao, Shao Xiong Liu & Yan Xia Chen

  2. Catalysis Research Center, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 001–0021, Japan

    Shen Ye

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  1. Dong Chen
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Correspondence to Yan Xia Chen.

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Chen, D., Tao, Q., Liao, L.W. et al. Determining the Active Surface Area for Various Platinum Electrodes. Electrocatal 2, 207–219 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12678-011-0054-1

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