Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction Studies on Gold Nanoparticles

After determining that the size of nanoclusters can be tuned such that they have a precise formula much like a chemical compound, much is still not known about nanoclusters, their properties, and how they interact if core size, ligand, and even environment is changed. One such mystery is how does the size of the nanoparticle tune its ability as a catalyst. As it is known that nanoparticles possess unique properties, studies have begun to look towards nanoclusters as catalysts for alternative forms of energy. Therefore, determining how size affects the ability of a nanoparticle catalyst becomes a very important question. To begin to understand how size affects the ability of the nanoparticle as a catalyst, two different series of nanoclusters were observed. Unlike previous studies, all the nanoparticles in the series have the same ligand in order to minimize ligand affects and concentrate on the effect of the size. It was found that for both series the largest AuNM, for both series, was the most selective when reducing O2 and produced the most OH- and the least HO2- for each series. The results suggest that as the size of the AuNM increase the ability as a catalyst does as well, implying that these studies could potential be used as a guide toward designing efficient fuel cells