Department of Physics, DTU
CINF has a solid basis in experimental surface science and catalysis, focusing on the fundamental interactions taking place at the surface-gas or surface-liquid interface. The ultimate goal is to capitalize on the derived fundamental understanding to design, synthesize, and test new functional materials. These materials can be used in catalysis related to energy production, energy conversion, and environmental protection. Thus the common denominator in our research is the basic surface and reactivity properties of nanoparticles which, allows for a deep insight, whether they are used for heterogeneous catalysis, electrocatalysis and photocatalysis. The center has access to world leading experimental setups see Figure 1.
Figure 1. Picture of the experimental hall in building 312. Here most of the UHV and surface science tools are located, while catalyst testing in taking place in Building 307.
Our main objective is to educate and create knowledge and develop new materials. One example is to I find the optimal size of Pt nanoparticles for
ORR se figure 2 or to find entire new alloys that are better than those we know today see figure 3.
Figure 2 displays the effect of particle size on the mass activity of Platinum nanoparticles in the ORR reaction. The maximum occurs because the fraction of surface sites go down with increasing size while for very small particle size the under-coordinated but much less active sites dominates. The inset shows the temperature programmed desorption of CO used to distinguish between under-coordinated sites and those on the terraces
Figure 3. The ORR activity for the alloys tested so far. The Insert shows how it for similar structures depends on the lattice parameter for the alloys