Detail:
Abstract: The oxygen electrochemistry plays an important role in energy storage for the photo- and electrochemical generation of chemical fuels and energy conversion for the combustion of chemical fuels in fuel cells. The challenge lies in the development of active catalysts for the both electrochemical reactions while understanding their structural and compositional behaviors during the electrocatalysis. In this talk, I will present our collaborative research in the development of shaped Pt-based catalysts. Exemplified by shaped Pt-Ni alloy catalysts, I will mainly introduce an overall understanding of these catalysts from their crystal nucleation and growth through a solvent-based colloidal method to their activation and degradation behaviors under the hostile electrochemical operation conditions. Using advanced characterizations like aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy-loss spectroscopy combined with a facile electrochemical technique, new atomic-scale insights into the whole lifetime of an electrocatalyst are given.
