Facile synthesis of carbon supported metal nanoparticles via sputtering onto a liquid substrate and their electrochemical application

Abstract

Synthesis of electrochemically active carbon supported nanoparticles (NPs) was achieved via direct one-step sputtering onto a carbon containing liquid substrate. Platinum (Pt) and platinum–nickel (PtNi) NPs of approximately 2 nm in size were uniformly deposited onto carbon supports via a sputtering method with polyethylene glycol (PEG) being used as a liquid substrate. Unlike expensive ionic liquids, this experiment leads to direct application for the electrocatalyst, due to the absence of the surface absorbable ions which can hinder electrochemically active surfaces. The fabricated carbon supported Pt NPs had comparable activity to commercial Pt/C catalysts, and PtNi NPs on carbon synthesized by co-sputtering exhibited 1.9 times higher mass activity at 0.95 V for the oxygen reduction reaction relative to the conventional catalyst. Synthesis via a sputtering process onto the PEG is beneficial due to repeatable results, has easy scalability for mass production as well as a simple and convenient preparation method for NPs.