Plasma Co-Sputtering Methods for the One-Step Synthesis of Pt-C Nanowires Composites With Enhanced Electrocatalytic Properties

Comm. OraleInternational audienceBecause the small size of nanoparticles (NPs) induces specific properties,[1,2] nanomaterials have found numerous applications in chemistry, electronics, optics, information storage, medical, biotechnology and catalysis.[3] Many processes of heterogeneous catalysis (vehicle exhaust and industrial effluent treatments, petrochemistry, sensors, energy storage and conversion...) use costly and strategic metals from the platinum group.[4] Here, a high surface-to-volume ratio leading to a large fraction of accessible atoms is required for increasing the activity of the catalyst.[5] There is thus a real interest in obtaining the highest catalytic surface area from a low metal weight, particularly in the case of electrochemical reactors (fuel cells, electrolysis cells) and sensors. Indeed, commercial fuel cells currently available have a specific power of 1 or 2 kW gPt. The high amount of platinum makes commercial fuel cells reliable but the noble metal efficiency is far too low to allow a scalable industrial implementation. Several solutions can be provided, such as developing new Pt-based active layers architecture/structure leading to high metal utilization. 3-D nanostructures of active layers are proposed as enhanced architectures