The electrochemical behavior of ad-atoms and their effect on hydrogen evolution Part III. Platinum ad-atoms on gold, and gold ad-atoms on platinum

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to investigate the role of the surface in electrocatalysis for hydrogen evolution using platinum-gold system. The surface composed of gold and platinum atoms being mixed with each other uniformly on the atomic scale was prepared by the electrodeposition of gold or platinum atoms on platinum or gold substrate, respectively. The activity assigned to one platinum atom for hydrogen evolution was found to change with the surface fraction of platinum in quite the same manner on both kinds of substrates. This leads to the conclusion that the activity is predominantly controlled by the surface and not by the bulk in this case.