The growing demand for pure precious metallic catalysts, eq. Pt and Au, and its alloys in applications of sensing and energy makes it necessary to develop facile and efficient processes for regeneration of precious metal containing materials and for characterization of their catalytic and sensing performance. A facile electrochemical characterizing procedure of precious metallic nanoparticles (Pt_nano and Au_nano) was developed to in situ track the variation in the particle size and density.^1-3 In this procedure, the combination of the electrochemically surface area (ECSA) evaluation and the amount of precious metal obtained by the anodic electrolysis (especially for the breakthrough in the electrochemical quantification of Pt content) was used to evaluate the average diameter and the particle density of Pt_nano and Au_nano on the electrode. This procedure assisted in optimizing analytical parameters of the detection of As³⁺ in aqueous solution by a Au_nano modified glassy carbon electrode and identification of the pathway that mainly contributed to carbon supported Pt catalyst degradation in fuel cell operation.

References

1. Huang, J. F.; Chen, H. Y. Angew. Chem.-Int. Edit. 51, 1684 (2012).
2. Huang, J.-F.; Fan, M.-C. J. Mater. Chem. 20, 1431 (2010).
3. Huang, J. F.; Yang, H. W. Anal. Chem. 64, 6403 (2016).