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EPSRC Reference: GR/L58460/01
Title: FACTORS INFLUENCING THE ELECTROCATALYTIC ACTIVITY OF NM SIZE PT PARTICLES
Principal Investigator: Williams, Professor D
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Department: Chemistry
Organisation: UCL
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 01 February 1998 Ends: 31 January 1999 Value (£): 9,322
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Catalysis & Applied Catalysis
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
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Summary on Grant Application Form
Reducing the size of metallic catalyst particles is a widely used method to increase the mass activity (catalytic activity per unit mass of catalyst) of a catalyst for a given process, as this increases the ratio of surface to bulk atoms. It is found with a number of metals that the intrinsic catalytic activity (i.e. catalytic activity per real surface area of catalyst) decreases as very small particle sizes are approached (diameter < 20 nm). This suggests that there is an optimum diameter below which no gain in mass activity is seen with decreasing particle size. The reason for this effect is still underdebate and is the target of our study. We propose to study a specific catalytic system (carbon supported Pt particles) and deploy new experimental methods to resolve three fundamental questions in the use of this system as an alactrocatalyst: what is the source of variations in catalytic activity seen between nanoscale Pt and bulk Pt; what is the source of the apparent size effect in Pt electrocatalysts; and how do these effects scale on moving from a two-dimensional to three-dimensional support ?
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