Synergistic effect of size-dependent PtZn nanoparticles and zinc single-atom sites for electrochemical ozone production in neutral media

Abstract

Electrochemical ozone production (EOP) via water electrolysis represents an attractive method for the generation of high-purity O 3 . Herein, the X-PtZn/Zn-N-C electrocatalysts show a strong structural sensitive behavior depends on the size of the PtZn nanoparticles and their EOP activity exhibits a volcano-type dependence for the O 3 performance in neutral media. The 7.7-PtZn/Zn-N-C exhibits EOP current efficiency of 4.2%, and shows the prominent performance in the production of gaseous O 3 with a value of 1647 ppb at 30 min, which is almost 4-fold compared to 2.2-PtZn/Zn-N-C. Based on the experiments and theoretical calculations, the performance of the EOP process was determined by the nanoparticle size-effect and the synergistic effect between the PtZn nanoparticles and atomically dispersed Zn-N-C. Furthermore, the five-membered cyclic structure of O 3 can be stabilized between the PtZn nanoparticle and the Zn-N-C support, indicating that O 3 is produced at the interface. The different sizes of PtZn dispersed on support of the Zn-N-C were successfully synthesized and exhibited a volcano-type dependence for the electrochemical ozone production (EOP) performance in neutral media.