Deconvolution of octahedral Pt3Ni nanoparticle growth pathway from in situ characterizations

Xiaochen Shen; Changlin Zhang; Shuyi Zhang; Sheng Dai; Guanghui Zhang; Mingyuan Ge; Yanbo Pan; Stephen M Sharkey; George W Graham; Adrian Hunt; Iradwikanari Waluyo; Jeffrey T Miller; Xiaoqing Pan; Zhenmeng Peng

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-06900-z

Deconvolution of octahedral Pt₃Ni nanoparticle growth pathway from in situ characterizations

Nat Commun. 2018 Oct 26;9(1):4485. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-06900-z.

Authors

Xiaochen Shen¹, Changlin Zhang¹, Shuyi Zhang^{2

3}, Sheng Dai^{2

3}, Guanghui Zhang⁴, Mingyuan Ge⁵, Yanbo Pan¹, Stephen M Sharkey¹, George W Graham^{2

3}, Adrian Hunt⁵, Iradwikanari Waluyo⁶, Jeffrey T Miller⁷, Xiaoqing Pan^{8

9}, Zhenmeng Peng¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH, 44325, USA.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
⁴ Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
⁵ National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, 11973, USA.
⁶ National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, 11973, USA. iwaluyo@bnl.gov.
⁷ Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA. jeffrey-t-miller@purdue.edu.
⁸ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA. xiaoqinp@uci.edu.
⁹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA. xiaoqinp@uci.edu.
¹⁰ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH, 44325, USA. zpeng@uakron.edu.

Abstract

Understanding the growth pathway of faceted alloy nanoparticles at the atomic level is crucial to morphology control and property tuning. Yet, it remains a challenge due to complexity of the growth process and technical limits of modern characterization tools. We report a combinational use of multiple cutting-edge in situ techniques to study the growth process of octahedral Pt₃Ni nanoparticles, which reveal the particle growth and facet formation mechanisms. Our studies confirm the formation of octahedral Pt₃Ni initiates from Pt nuclei generation, which is followed by continuous Pt reduction that simultaneously catalyzes Ni reduction, resulting in mixed alloy formation with moderate elemental segregation. Carbon monoxide molecules serve as a facet formation modulator and induce Ni segregation to the surface, which inhibits the (111) facet growth and causes the particle shape to evolve from a spherical cluster to an octahedron as the (001) facet continues to grow.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Abstract

Publication types

Grants and funding