Catalytic properties of graphite-supported wires

GERMÁN JOSÉ SOLDANO; PAOLA QUAINO; ELIZABETH SANTOS; WOLFGANG SCHMICKLER

Nice

Congreso; The 61st Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry; 2010

Metal nanowires have many applications in nanotechnology. From the electrochemical point of view, one-atom-thick wires are interesting due to their unique electronic structure: The density of states (DOS) of nanowires show d band up-shifts in comparison with the DOS of fcc(111) surfaces, particularly for Cu and Au. These nanowires are therefore remarkably more reactive towards hydrogen adsorption than the metal surfaces. Previews studies from this group show that they are actually excellent catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction. However, in practice, these wires are not suitable for catalysis since they are unstable. The idea is therefore to attached them to stable structures, such as armchair and zigzag graphite steps. This study shows the binding energy of such wires to graphite steps, and it compares their catalytic properties with respect to the free standing nanowires.