TY - JOUR
T1 - Catalytic activity of PtSn4
T2 - Insights from surface-science spectroscopies
AU - D'Olimpio, Gianluca
AU - Boukhvalov, Danil W.
AU - Fujii, Jun
AU - Torelli, Piero
AU - Marchionni, Andrea
AU - Filippi, Jonathan
AU - Kuo, Chia Nung
AU - Edla, Raju
AU - Ottaviano, Luca
AU - Lue, Chin Shan
AU - Vizza, Francesco
AU - Nappini, Silvia
AU - Politano, Antonio
N1 - Funding Information:
GDO acknowledges funding from PON Ricerca e Innovazione 2014-2020 (project n. E12H1800010001) by MIUR. AM, JF and FV also thank Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze for funding (project EnergyLab) and PRIN 2017 Project funded by Italian Ministry MIUR Italy (Grant 2017YH9MRK). SN gratefully acknowledge financial support from EuroFEL consortium. This work has been partially performed in the framework of the nanoscience foundry and fine analysis (NFFA-MIUR Italy Progetti Internazionali) project.
Funding Information:
GDO acknowledges funding from PON Ricerca e Innovazione 2014-2020 (project n. E12H1800010001 ) by MIUR. AM, JF and FV also thank Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze for funding (project EnergyLab) and PRIN 2017 Project funded by Italian Ministry MIUR Italy (Grant 2017YH9MRK). SN gratefully acknowledge financial support from EuroFEL consortium. This work has been partially performed in the framework of the nanoscience foundry and fine analysis (NFFA-MIUR Italy Progetti Internazionali) project.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2020/6/1
Y1 - 2020/6/1
N2 - Bulk PtSn4 has recently attracted the interest of the scientific community for the presence of electronic states exhibiting Dirac node arcs, enabling possible applications in nanoelectronics. Here, by means of surface-science experiments and density functional theory, we assess its suitability for catalysis by studying the chemical reactivity of the (0 1 0)-oriented PtSn4 surface toward CO, H2O, O2 molecules at room temperature and, moreover, its stability in air. We demonstrate that the catalytic activity of PtSn4 is determined by the composition of the outermost atomic layer. Specifically, we find that the surface termination for PtSn4 crystals cleaved in vacuum is an atomic Sn layer, which is totally free from any CO poisoning. In oxygen-rich environment, as well as in ambient atmosphere, the surface termination is a SnOx skin including SnO and SnO2 in comparable amount. However, valence-band states, including those forming Dirac node arcs, are only slightly affected by surface modifications. The astonishingly beneficial influence of surface oxidation on catalytic activity has been demonstrated by electrocatalytic tests evidencing a reduction of the Tafel slope, from 442 down to 86 mV dec−1, whose origin has been explained by our theoretical model. The use of surface-science tools to tune the chemical reactivity of PtSn4 opens the way toward its effective use in catalysis, especially for hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction.
AB - Bulk PtSn4 has recently attracted the interest of the scientific community for the presence of electronic states exhibiting Dirac node arcs, enabling possible applications in nanoelectronics. Here, by means of surface-science experiments and density functional theory, we assess its suitability for catalysis by studying the chemical reactivity of the (0 1 0)-oriented PtSn4 surface toward CO, H2O, O2 molecules at room temperature and, moreover, its stability in air. We demonstrate that the catalytic activity of PtSn4 is determined by the composition of the outermost atomic layer. Specifically, we find that the surface termination for PtSn4 crystals cleaved in vacuum is an atomic Sn layer, which is totally free from any CO poisoning. In oxygen-rich environment, as well as in ambient atmosphere, the surface termination is a SnOx skin including SnO and SnO2 in comparable amount. However, valence-band states, including those forming Dirac node arcs, are only slightly affected by surface modifications. The astonishingly beneficial influence of surface oxidation on catalytic activity has been demonstrated by electrocatalytic tests evidencing a reduction of the Tafel slope, from 442 down to 86 mV dec−1, whose origin has been explained by our theoretical model. The use of surface-science tools to tune the chemical reactivity of PtSn4 opens the way toward its effective use in catalysis, especially for hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85080104479&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85080104479&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.apsusc.2020.145925
DO - 10.1016/j.apsusc.2020.145925
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85080104479
VL - 514
JO - Applied Surface Science
JF - Applied Surface Science
SN - 0169-4332
M1 - 145925
ER -