Spontaneous formation of platinum particles on electrodeposited palladium

Pt particles have been spontaneously formed on the electrochemically deposited Pd layer on ITO substrate. SEM reveals that the Pt particles spontaneously formed on the Pd surface are uniformly distributed. The as-prepared material (denotes as Pt–Pd/ITO) as electrode shows a higher activity for ethanol oxidation than that of Pd/ITO. The mechanism is tentatively explained as that the H dehydrogenated from ethanol on Pt can efficiently spillover to the underneath Pd, resulting in an enhanced kinetics. The rapid removal of H on the Pt active sites accelerates the further adsorption of ethanol and dehydrogenation (oxidation). This work demonstrates a strategic method to spontaneous prepare small particles on the reductive species-containing substrates. The metal ion with a higher standard potential than that of hydrogen is theoretically possible to be spontaneously reduced to metal on hydrogenated Pd.