CPLACES: Clusters of platinum and its alloys for fuel cell applications

Lead Research Organisation: King's College London
Department Name: Physics

Abstract

The depletion of fossil fuels and increasing environmental concerns demand efficient, pollution-free energy technologies. The key point is to develop highly efficient electrocatalytic devices, for example fuel cells, which directly convert chemical energy to direct-current electrical energy, without burning dirty fuels, such as oil or gasoline. However, practical energy and power densities and the cost of catalytic components of the electrochemical systems, i.e. platinum for fuel cell applications, limit their competitiveness relative to conventional technologies. The thermodynamics and kinetics of these electrochemical reactions are driven by the size, the geometrical structure and the chemical composition of the electrode material. Our growing ability to manipulate matter at a nanoscale regime, with complete control of the chemical composition, provides a new and unique opportunity to design materials with the desired catalytic properties. This project will discuss, using a computational approach, how the electronic, surface and crystal structures can be tailored to design and characterise better nanoalloy electrocatalysts for fuel cell applications.

Publications

10 25 50
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Baletto F (2015) Doped golden fullerene cages in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.

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Baletto F (2019) Structural properties of sub-nanometer metallic clusters. in Journal of physics. Condensed matter : an Institute of Physics journal

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Blumberger J (2011) 1st TYC workshop on energy materials. in Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP

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Di Paola C (2011) Oxygen adsorption on small PtNi nanoalloys. in Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP

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Di Paola C (2013) Chemical order and magnetic properties in small Mx-2N2 nanoalloys in The European Physical Journal D

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Di Paola Cono (2015) Topological effects in magnetic platinum nano-particles in arXiv e-prints

 
Description A lot of efforts has been done to study the shape-property relationship in nanoparticles. In particular, the structural (in)stability of mono and bi-metallic nanoparticles has been investigated through numerical modelling. This includes the implementation of ad-hoc reaction coordinated in a Metadynamics scheme for the study of structural transformation at finite temperatures of large nanoparticle and nanoalloys. Molecular Dynamics have been used to study structural and chemical order stability even during the growth and the melting of Pt-based nanoalloys. Peculiar and new chemical order and/or structural motifs are found in AgCo and in CoPt nanoalloys with potential as nanocatalysts and magnetic devices. The effect of doping in Pt-nanoparticles and their magnetic behavior as a function of size, was considered during the project.
Once structures in the gas phase have been considered, the effect of the environment on the structural stability of Pt nanoparticles has been modelled in the case of zeolite embedding (accepted Nanoscale) and oxide supports (JPCM). Furthermore, FB have been invited to write a personal review for JPCM on structural properties of sub-nanometer metallic clusters (JPCM 2019) to sign the additional visibility and esteem she is gaining.

With a focus on fuel cell applications and oxygen reduction reaction, molecular oxygen, chemisorption upon free and supported Pt and PtNi have been investigated.
Exploitation Route Shape-property relationship in nanosystems is essential for the use of metallic nanoparticles in any technological applications, ranging from catalysis up to optical and magnetic devices.
Sectors Energy,Transport

URL http://balettogroup.weebly.com
 
Description CCP5 - Summer Internship
Amount £4,000 (GBP)
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2017 
End 09/2017
 
Description COST Action MP0903: AgAu cages: a simulation study
Amount £300 (ETB)
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 04/2011 
End 05/2011
 
Description COST Action MP0903: Cage-like nanoalloys
Amount € 500 (EUR)
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 03/2011 
End 05/2011
 
Description COST-Action MP0903
Amount € 600 (EUR)
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 04/2014 
End 05/2014
 
Description COST-Action MP0903: TAMC activity
Amount £800 (GBP)
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 08/2013 
End 09/2013
 
Description Class 2b HECToR Application for National Supercomputing Resource
Amount £2,750 (GBP)
Organisation University of Edinburgh 
Department High-End Computing Terascale Resource (HECToR)
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2010 
End 11/2010
 
Description Marenostrum computational time
Amount € 10,000 (EUR)
Organisation Barcelona Supercomputing Center 
Sector Public
Country Spain
Start 06/2017 
End 09/2017
 
Description Postdoctoral visit/exchange
Amount R$ 50,000 (BRL)
Organisation Government of Brazil 
Department Science without Borders
Sector Public
Country Brazil
Start 06/2016 
End 06/2017
 
Description Royal Society equipment
Amount £13,882 (GBP)
Organisation The Royal Society 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2012 
End 12/2013
 
Description Workshop support
Amount £250 (GBP)
Organisation Royal Society of Chemistry 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 10/2016 
End 02/2017
 
Title Development of an empirical force field for oxide surfaces 
Description A new force field has been derived for the simulation of supported platinum clusters on the pristine MgO surface 
Type Of Material Computer model/algorithm 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact Scientific publication a deeper understanding on the building up of Pt-based nanocatalysts 
 
Title LoDiS: low dimensional system molecular dynamics 
Description We have develop and implemented a few tools for the study of metallic nanoparticles (mNPs) in the vacuum and in environment Tools available NVE, NVT classical molecular dynamics itMD: temperature-cycle of NVT simulation, one parameter -called rate- tune the change of the temperature, needed to study nucleation and predicting the caloric curve of mNPs Metadynamics Growth: one-by-one and coalescence (of two clusters) e-LoDiS (environmental LoDiS) additional force field to mimic - the presence of a substrate with different geometrical pattern (e.g. Pt on MgO) - a liquid-like/ligand environment with different coupling with the mNP Post-processing tools: Structural-LoDiS: pair distribution function, chemical radial distribution function, common neighbour analysis, vibrational spectrum from VACF, analytical coordination number and generalised coordination number; geometrical genome cat-LoDiS: estimate of the IV curves for reduction reactions (e.g. ORR) based on a geometrical genome 
Type Of Material Computer model/algorithm 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact we are actually working on making the code available to an academic and then general public, through a IAA-EPSRC grant. 
 
Description COST- Ferrando 
Organisation University of Genoa
Country Italy 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Under the COST-Action MP0903 umbrella, I'm collaborating with prof. Ferrando on Au-based nanocages. I am currently doing the ab-initio calculations for sizes of 32 atoms (golden fullerene)
Collaborator Contribution Ferrando's group is looking at small magic sizes. At KCL we have performed ab-initio calculations for detecting the HOMO_LUMO gap of those small Au-based nanoparticles. An interesting finding has been achieved, as the shape is found to be an importnat factor for enlarging the gap.
Impact A paper has been published
Start Year 2010
 
Description COST-Novakovic 
Organisation National Research Council
Country Italy 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution COST-Action MP0903 collaboration with prof. Rada Novakovic on melting process of CuPt nanoaprticles. My group did the growth and melting process using atomistic approaches
Collaborator Contribution CALPHAD was used to calculate the melting point of nanoparticles starting from data of surfaces/bulk. A good mixing of atomistic and classical numerical methods have been applied
Impact A manuscript has been published on PCCP
Start Year 2014
 
Description FAPESP collaboration 
Organisation Universidade de São Paulo
Country Brazil 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Providing Pt nanoparticles for ethanol catalysis
Collaborator Contribution Ethanol catalysis on surfaces
Impact A paper is in preparation. Dr Vagner Rigo will come as senior post doc from June 2016 May 2017 supported by a Science without Border fellowship. Thanks to this collaborations, our groups will take part to the KCL/USP week to be held on 11-13 May 2016.
Start Year 2012
 
Title LoDiS-MD: low dimensional systems molecular dynamics 
Description LoDiS-MD: low dimensional systems molecular dynamics is a softaware tool wirtten in Fotran90 designed specifically to the study of metallic nanoparticles. There is long varierty of tools such as ionic minimization one-by-one growth nucleation thermal stability metadynamics It is now coming with a post-processing tool for the geometrical analysis of metallic nanoparticles 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2015 
Impact Elucidating how the geometrical shape may influence the physicochemical properties of nano-objects (shape-property relationship) has acquired more and more importance in the design of devices for target applications. We plan to put the code open-sources in two-three years once more potential and how to describe external enviroments will be implemented (our top priority). This will allow small compnies and academics to create a complete database for objects at the nanoscale not only with their peculiar structures but including their thermal stability and hints for investigating their physico-chemical properties. 
 
Description Invited talk at the CECAM-meeting on "Modeling metal-based nanoparticles: environment and dynamical effects", 3-5 Dec. 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact A CECAM workshop attended by at least 50 members, including people involved in the IRN-network. FB delivered an invited talk which attracted a considerable attention and further activities/collaborations can born from that.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description CECAM Meeting 2010 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation keynote/invited speaker
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact In this invited talk, a detailed description of the growth transition between core/shell and Janus-like geometries for AgCo is presented in comparison with the mixing growth behavior of CoPt clusters. For the first time, a Janus-motif was detected and this opened/stimulated considerably the discussion afterwards.

Stimulating the discussion/research activity in the field of nanoalloys; Academic collaborations; developing better nanocatalysts
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description CECAM Meeting 2015-Toulose 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact I gave an invited talk on "Modelling metal-based nanoparticles: toward realistic environments". Further discussion gave me the possibility to reach the interest of Johnson Matthey.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description COST Action Final Meeting: AuCu and AgAu nanocages 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact My presentation stimulated a discussion afterwards

Scientific network boosted
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description ECOSS-2015: Barcelona 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Invited talk at the ECOSS 2015 on ""Modelling Nanocatalysts", several questions after my talks and potential new collaboration across Europe.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Euromat 2015: Warsaw 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Invited talk on "Investigating structural transformation in nanoalloys via Metadynamics" by Mr. Kevin Rossi
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description FisMat2015 (28/09/15 - 2/10/2015) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Oral presentation on Understanding the catalytic activity of large polyhedral nanoparticles from first-principles.
presented by PDRA Dr. GianGiacomo Asara
We presented a new approach that allows an extrapolation and compare results obtained by means of computer simulations and those obtained in surface science experiments.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description ICTP-College on Multiscale Computational Modeling of Materials for Energy Applications 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact I did three presentations at this International School host by the Unesco-ICTP.
One presentation was a long invited talk (a keynote) on my recent research.
Then we did a half-day school on the software we are developing and maintaining in my research group. My PhD, Mr Kevin Rossi, attended and helped during this activity.
Further I made a presentation on being an outreach activity to support female academic staff, and in particular on "Being an Academic Mum"
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://indico.ictp.it/event/7656/
 
Description ISSPIC XIX- Invited talk 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact More than 100 people (academics/postdocs/PhD) attended the conference, the main international conference in the field.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description ISSPIC XVI: Leuven 2012 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation keynote/invited speaker
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact ISSPIC XVI, Leuven (Belgium) 8-13 July 2012
Hot topic talk on "O2 chemisorption on PtshellNicore nanoalloys deposited on MgO(100)"
The effect of MgO substrate on the adsorption energy of an oxygen molecule upon a PtNi cluster has been studied employing ab-initio methods. It has been shown that bulk-like structures, presenting a (100) interface, are more stable than icosahedral objects. Total magnetization could be also enhanced by the presence of the sibstrate.

Stimulating considerably the discussion and further developments in the field. Mentioned explicitly during the closing remarks by prof. Palmer.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description International Symposium on 'Semiconductor Clusters and Nanoparticles: Geometric, Electronic, and Optical Properties', Berlin 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact An invited talk to an Int. Symposium linked to a DFG program (German platform grant). This allowed me to show my results to a wide a new community.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description International Workshop on Nanoalloys 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact A quite select group of people working on nano alloys across Europe (following the previous COST-Action network we had). One day presentation, I was invited to give a talk, and the second day dedicated to established a new network. A Faraday discussion meeting is likely to happen in 2018 and I have been offered my support to organise it.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Invited Lecture at the CATSENSE Summer School, Leuven, Sept 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact It was a privilege to be invited to give a talk to such a high qualified group of students and post-doc actively involved in different aspects of catalysis, as they are part of a EU collaboration. Several questions afterwards.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Invited Talk at the Faraday Joint Interest Group, Warwick 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Invited talk at the first join Faraday Discussion meeting organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry. A good discussion afterwards.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Invited talk at Cost-Action, Graz, Austria, Feb 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Delivered a talk to an International community -which gather various EU group under the umbrella of COST-Action CM-1405 MOLIM. Several questions and discussion afterwards.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.staff.tugraz.at/andreas.hauser/molim2018/
 
Description Invited talk at the ICTP-Workshop on "Workshop on Crystal Structure Prediction" 14-16 January 2019 21 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact More than 50 between academics, young researcher from different world institutions -including a strong participation from 3rd countries- attended that workshop.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Invited talk at the International Symposium Semiconductor Clusters and Nanoparticles, Berlin 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Invited talk to a quite heterogeneous audience working on nanoscale systems. Several questions afterwards and new contacts were made during the event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Launch of the EPSRC-Tier2 MMM-Hub 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact A significant audience for the launch event of the new Tier2 HPC facility which serve London academic groups working on computational material science. The talk was well received by the audience.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description MRS/IMRC XIX: Cancun 2010 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation keynote/invited speaker
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Invited talk at MRS/IMRC XIX, Cancun (Mexico) Aug. 22nd-26th 2010
on "MAGNETISM AND CHEMICAL ORDER IN TRANSITION METAL NANOALLOYS"
A computational based on density functional theory and rather systematic study is presented, where cobalt, iron and nickel have been used to dope transition metal nano­ particles in the size range from a few up to 76 atoms. Their magnetic behaviour is discussed as well that of nano­clusters obtained throughout a growth process.

Strictly of academic interest. Boosting my academic profile and working for further networking.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description Pacific Chem 2015: Hawaii 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Invited talk on "Supported metallic and bimetallic nanocatalysts". Several new contacts. An invitation to present my work at the Palmer's group in Birmingham.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Physics by the lake (summer scool), Cumberland Lodge 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact physics by the lake (summer scool), cumberland
national, 11-50 attending
poster presentation on "metallic nanoparticles meet metadynamics" by Mr K. Rossi
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Psi-K 2015: San Sebastian (several contributions) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact A. Poster Presentation on "Understanding the catalytic activity of large polyhedral nanoparticles from first-principles", presenter Dr GianGiacomo Asara
We introduced to other colleagues from all around the world our roadmap that allows to extrapolate results obtained using small in-silico models to experimental sizes.

B. Poster Presentation on "Thermodynamics of CuPt via DFT fitted potential" by Mr. K. Rossi
C. Poster Presentation on "Topological effects on the magentization of platinum nanoclusters"
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description School Visit (St Eugene) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact 30 pupils attended a "Meet a scientist" event at their school. They made several questions during and after the presentation. The school put the event on their newsletter and we hope to invite a short cohort of students to visit the Physics department at KCL.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description School Visit (St Mary) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact 30 pupils (Year 5) attended a "Meet a scientist" presentation I made at their school. Several questions and discussions during and after the presentation. The school reported a strong interest in science subjects.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Seminar at DIPC and UPV, San Sebastian, Spain "Unravelling morphologies and chemical ordering at the nanoscale" 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Seminar at DIPC, San Sebastian on "Unravelling morphologies and chemical ordering at the nanoscale" June 2014
My talk stimulates the discussion on how we can model the shape-property relationship.

Networking
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description TOFA 2012: Pula 2012 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation keynote/invited speaker
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact TOFA 2012, Pula, Croatia 23-28 September, 2012
Key Lecture on "Energetic, thermodynamics and kinetics of metallic nanoalloys"
The technological application of nanoalloys (NAs), agglomerates of two or more transition metals with a diameter of less than few tens of nanometers, is constantly growing in various fields ranging from catalysis to magnetic storage and biomedical uses. For those applications, the design the NA with the targeting property is highly desirable.Here a review on the available simulation tools both ab-initio and classical can be used in order to characterize the energetic and thermal stability of met

Establishment of new collaborations
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description TYC student day 2015 (symposium): London 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Poster presentation on "Metallic nanoparticles meet metadynamics" by Mr. K. Rossi
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description TYC-Energy workshop and Toucan conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact I was the main organiser of the 4th TYC-Energy workshop held at King's College London.

On top of the full organisation, I made a presentation on numerical methods for the design of nano catalysts.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.thomasyoungcentre.org/events/energy-materials-workshop
 
Description University of Birmingham 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Seminar at Birmingham Univ., "Growth simulations of cobalt nanoalloys", 11 May 2009;
A quite significant discussion sparked after my presentation and further collaborations were made.

Scientific network/collaboration
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009
 
Description University of Oxford 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Seminar at Oxford Univ., "Towards a nano-solution for environmental puzzles", 5 June 2009.
New chemical order and shaped at the nanoscale. Effect of shape on magnetism.

Seminar open to undergrad/postgrad students at Univ. of Oxford.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009