Electrochemical Characterization of Clean Shape-Controlled Pt Nanoparticles Prepared in Presence of Oleylamine/Oleic Acid

Abstract

A collection of shape-controlled Pt nanoparticles has been prepared using two different and previously described methodologies, both using oleylamine/oleic acid as capping material/solvent. A new decontamination protocol is presented to effectively clean the surface of the different nanoparticles thus allowing a full exposure of their surface area and consequently to make the most of their surface structure dependent reactivity. Subsequently, the clean shape-controlled Pt nanoparticles have been electrochemically characterized and their electrocatalytic properties evaluated towards some surface structure reactions of interest. The results indicate that the full characterization of the surface structure cannot be done exclusively by the available microscopy techniques, since it is very difficult to determine the presence of surface defects. Additional surface characterization probes, such as those provided by electrochemical surface sensitive reactions, have been used to assess the surface structure of the samples.