Simple and high-yield preparation of carbon-black-supported ∼1 nm platinum nanoclusters and their oxygen reduction reactivity

Abstract

The improvement of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts is essential before polymer electrolyte fuel cells can be used widely. To this end, we established a simple method for the size-selective...

Metal-nanocluster science and technology: my personal history and outlook

“…17(c)). 121 Among the Pt n /CB catalysts, Pt B51 /CB showed 2.1 times higher mass activity than the commercial Pt NPs/CB catalyst. On the basis of estimation of the electrochemical activity area and specific activity, we concluded that Pt n /CB shows higher ORR mass activity than commercial Pt NPs/CB because both the percentage of surface Pt atoms and specific activity of each surface Pt atom are higher for Pt n /CB than for commercial Pt NPs/CB.…”

“…7(d)). 121 Unfortunately, the chemical compositions of these Pt n (PET) m (CO) l NCs cannot be controlled with atomic precision at present. Therefore, the chemical compositions and geometric structures of these NCs have not been accurately determined.…”

“…4(a)), (2) isolation of alloy NCs 110–117 (Section 4.3 and Fig. 4(b)), (3) isolation of metal NCs consisting of Ag or Pt 118–121 (Section 4.4 and Fig. 4(c)), (4) isolation of metal NCs protected by other ligands 122–128 (Section 4.5 and Fig.…”

“…120 In addition, by further modification of this method, we successfully synthesized a series of Pt n (PET) m (CO) l NCs ( n = ∼35, ∼51, and ∼66) in a size-selective manner with a narrow particle-size distribution. 121 Pt n /CB catalysts were then prepared by adsorbing these Pt n NCs on CB and partially removing the ligands at appropriate temperatures (Fig. 17(a and b)).…”

“…Through these studies, each catalyst has been successfully highly functionalized. Specifically, we have achieved producing the highest water-splitting activity for BaLa 4 Ti 4 O 15 , 290 one of the most advanced water-splitting photocatalyst, creating electrode catalysts with higher ORR activity than the Pt catalysts currently used in fuel cells 121 and improving the functionality of automotive exhaust-gas purification catalysts. 299 These results strongly suggest that the bottom-up nanotechnology established in the metal-NC field can contribute to construction of a clean and sustainable society, that is, provide solutions for the issues faced by modern society.…”