Electrocatalysis Assisted by Single Atoms on Magnetite (001) Surfaces

ALLONGUE PHILLIPE; DORIS GRUMELLI; MAROUN FOAU; KLAUS KERN; FEDERICO CARLOS DAVID LÓPEZ; OLAF MAGNUSSEN

Belgrade

Congreso; 71st Annual ISE Meeting Belgrade Online; 2020

Internacional Society of Electrochemistry

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is of great importance in electrochemistry due to its participation in clean energy generation technologies. The main problem with this reaction is its slow kinetics, which leads to the inevitable use of catalysts. Current catalysts for this reaction have a high cost in the market that is transferred to the technological applications. The use of single atom catalysis (SAC), not only reduces the amount of require material but also gain in selectivity and activity being a unique atom the active site [1]. One of the major challenges still the absorption stability of SAC on the support that during the harsh electrocatalytic conditions usually tends to sinter and agglomerate into larger structures (cluster and nanoparticles). It have been propose the use of reconstructed magnetite (Fe3O4) single crystal surfaces in their (001) orientation to act as templates for individual metal atoms [2]. Fe3O4 (001) surfaces, prepared in ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions, present a surface reconstruction which is responsible for the stabilization of SAC [2]. Recent experiments in our laboratory demonstrated the electrochemical stability of this reconstruction in the range of potentials where the OER occurs [3].