Electrochemistry of metal nanoparticles: the effect of substrate

Abstract

It is shown that nanoparticles localized on a foreign solid electrode may display two opposite shifts of dissolution potential, namely, a shift toward either more positive or more negative values as compared with the equilibrium potential of M ⁿ⁺/M ⁰ or the potential of bulk metal electrooxidation. The observed phenomena are interpreted in view of three energy states of substance, which are realized depending on contribution of the surface Gibbs free energy (ΔG°) to the energy of the system. Literature data concerning different metal-substrate pairs and specially conducted experimental investigations of electrooxidation of gold nanoparticles (radius equal to 10 and 150 nm), which are localized on the surface of glassy carbon, bulk gold, and platinum electrodes are presented and discussed. A shift of maximum current potential of small nanoparticles oxidation toward more positive values is observed in this series. The oxidation potential of large nanoparticles is not affected by the nature of the substrate. In all cases, electrooxidation of gold nanoparticles occurs at the more negative potentials than those of the bulk gold electrooxidation. It is shown that depending on the nature of the substrate and nanoparticle size, the dominating effect is either interaction of nanoparticles with the substrate (ΔG° < 0) and electrochemical potential shifts toward positive values or impact of surface Gibbs free energy of nanoparticles (ΔG° > 0) into energy of the system and electrochemical potential shifts toward negative values. The validity of the proposed assumptions is confirmed by good correlation of literature and our experimental data with calculated ones.