Efficient amorphous platinum catalyst cluster growth on porous carbon: A combined molecular dynamics and experimental study

•Molecular dynamics simulations of Pt growth on a realistic porous carbon substrate.•Amorphous Pt cluster growth with high catalytic efficiency at very low loading.•Pt clusters wetting the surface and fitting closely the surface morphology.•Successful comparison between experiments and molecular dynamics simulations.

Amorphous platinum clusters supported on porous carbon have been envisaged for high-performance fuel cell electrodes. For this application, it is crucial to control the morphology of the Pt layer and the Pt–substrate interaction to maximize activity and stability. We thus investigate the morphology evolution during Pt cluster growth on a porous carbon substrate employing atomic scale molecular dynamics simulations. The simulations are based on the Pt-C interaction potential using parameters derived from density functional theory and are found to yield a Pt cluster morphology similar to that observed in low loaded fuel cell electrodes prepared by plasma sputtering. Moreover, the simulations show amorphous Pt cluster growth in agreement with X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy experiments on high performance low Pt content (10 μgPt cm−2) loaded fuel cell electrodes and provide a fundamental insight in the cluster growth mechanism.

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