Electrocatalytic performance of PtxNi1-x bimetallic clusters prepared by laser ablation cluster beam deposition Yubiao Niu 1 , Anupam Yadav 2 , Ting-Wei Liao 2 , Xian-Kui Wei 3 , Marc Heggen 3 , Ewald Janssens 2 , Peter Lievens 2 , Andrew J Wain 4 and Richard E Palmer 1 1 Nanomaterials Lab, Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Swansea University, UK, 2 Quantum Solid State Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, KU Leuven, Belgium, 3 Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons and Peter Grunberg Institute, Germany, 4 National Physical Laboratory, UK Electrolyser technologies offer an environmentally friendly route to the production of hydrogen gas, which can be used as an energy carrier in a variety of applications [1, 2]. Electrolysis of water involves using electricity to split water into oxygen at the anode and hydrogen at the cathode, with catalysts required on each electrode in order to make these reactions energetically feasible. Due to the slow kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction, a substantial amount of research effort has been focused on improving the design of the anode catalyst [3]. However, the cathode catalyst still presents problems: whilst platinum, the benchmark catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), is both highly active and stable, it is an expensive, rare earth metal. Therefore, the amount of Pt in the cathode catalyst needs to be reduced or replaced with cheaper, earth abundant alternatives to improve sustainability and reduce device costs. Alloying platinum with non-noble transition metals is one route to achieving these objectives. In this work, the catalytic reactivity of Pt-Ni nanoclusters, synthesised by laser ablation cluster beam deposition technique, towards electrochemical HER was investigated. Pt 70 Ni 30 and Pt 50 Ni 50 have effectively achieved equivalent performance to the Pt disk. An anti-contamination effect was also revealed for Pt x Ni 1-x Bimetallic Clusters. References 1. Ifkovits, Z. P., Evans, J. M., Meier, M. C., Papadantonakis, K. M., & Lewis, N. S. Energy & Environmental Science, 2021. 2. Escalera-López, D., Niu, Y., Park, S. J., Isaacs, M., Wilson, K., Palmer, R. E., & Rees, N. V. (2018). Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 235, 84-91. 3. Wei, C., Rao, R. R., Peng, J., Huang, B., Stephens, I. E., Risch, M., & Shao‐Horn, Y. (2019). Advanced Materials, 31(31), 1806296.
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