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SYNTHESIS AND ELECTROCATALYSIS OF METAL NANOMATERIALS

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2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Direct liquid fuel cells, such as the direct formic acid fuel cell, have attracted increasing attention due to the environmental problems caused by the usage of normal fossil fuels. The critical issues in the development of highly efficient fuel cells are the slow kinetics in anode and cathode reactions. Platinum catalysts are normally used in fuel cells to increase the reaction rates. However, the application of these catalysts is still limited due to the limited source and expensive cost, as well as catalyst poisoning during the fuel cell operation. In addition, fuel cell reactions are sensitive to the surface structure of catalysts. Thus, the investigation of synthesis and electrocatalysis of metal catalysts other than pure platinum play a significant role in the development of fuel cells. This dissertation focuses on the synthesis of shape-controlled metal nanomaterials and studies their catalytic activities toward fuel cell reactions, such as formic acid oxidation and oxygen reduction reaction, for better understanding their mechanisms that will benefit in discovering high performance catalysts. For the structure sensitive investigation of formic acid oxidation, the key is to synthesize specific facet enclosed nanocrystals. Thus, a new approach for directly synthesizing low-index palladium nanocrystals was developed, which enables the direct comparison of low-index facets of palladium catalyst toward formic acid oxidation. In addition, twinned palladium nanorods were also introduced, which have higher catalytic activity than low-index palladium nanocrystals. Furthermore, in order to obtain high-index catalytic information of palladium toward formic acid oxidation, high-index facet as well as low-index facet enclosed gold nanocrystals were synthesized and used as templates for the study of the facet effect of palladium overlayer on gold toward formic acid oxidation. For the oxygen reduction reaction, four types of platinum based alloys were synthesized and their catalytic activities toward oxygen reduction reaction were systematically compared. A simple procedure for effectively removing surfactants from shape-controlled platinum nanocubes will also be introduced in this dissertation.
Shouzhong Zou, PhD (Advisor)
Neil Danielson, PhD (Committee Chair)
Andre Sommer, PhD (Committee Member)
Hong Wang, PhD (Committee Member)
Shashi Lalvani, PhD (Committee Member)
160 p.

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Citations

  • Tang, Y. (2014). SYNTHESIS AND ELECTROCATALYSIS OF METAL NANOMATERIALS [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1402313477

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Tang, Yongan. SYNTHESIS AND ELECTROCATALYSIS OF METAL NANOMATERIALS. 2014. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1402313477.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Tang, Yongan. "SYNTHESIS AND ELECTROCATALYSIS OF METAL NANOMATERIALS." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1402313477

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)