Electrocatalysis on Platinum Nanoparticles: Particle Size Effect on Oxygen Reduction Reaction Activity

We determined the size-dependent specific and mass activities of the oxygen reduction in HClO4 solutions on the Pt particles in the range of 1-5 nm. The maximal mass activity at 2.2 nm is well explained based on density functional theory calculations performed on fully relaxed nanoparticles. The presence of the edge sites is the main reason for the low specific activity in nanoparticles due to very strong oxygen binding energies at these sites. Our results clearly demonstrate that the catalytic activity highly depends on the shape and size of the nanoparticles.