title: Electrocatalytic oxidation of formic acid and methanol on Pt deposits on Au(111).
abstract: This work presents characteristics of Pt deposits on Au(111) obtained by the use of spontaneous deposition and investigated by electrochemical scanning tunneling microscopy (EC-STM). On such prepared and STM characterized Au(111)/Pt surfaces, we studied electrocatalytic oxidation of formic acid and methanol. We show that the first monatomic layer of Pt displays a (square root 3 x square root 3)R30 degrees surface structure, while the second layer is (1 x 1). After prolonged deposition, multilayer Pt deposits are formed selectively on Au(111) surface steps and are 1-20 nm wide and one to five layers thick. On the optimized Au(111)/Pt surface, formic acid oxidation rates are enhanced by a factor of 20 compared to those of pure Pt(111). The (square root 3 x square root 3)R30 degrees-Pt yields very low methanol oxidation rates, but the rates increase significantly with further Pt growth.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, Korea.
authors.forename: Jandee
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Changhoon
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.forename: Choong K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Rhee
authors.forename: Tae-hoon
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Lim