Highly dispersed platinum nanoparticles supported on silica as catalyst for hydrogen production

A synthetic approach is developed to produce highly disperse, low loading (3.28 wt%) Pt nanoparticles incorporated silica (Pt-NP-S) with average diameter of 3.5 nm using economical and simple surface chemical modification and reduction processes. This was achieved by using silica modified by dithiocarbamate functional groups treated with a solution of hexachloroplatinic acid followed by chemical reduction to produce Pt nanoparticles incorporated silica support. The physicochemical characterizations of the Pt nanoparticles incorporated silica were performed by elemental analysis, FTIR, TGA, chemisorption analysis and transmission electron microscopy. The results show that the Pt nanoparticles were uniformly distributed throughout the silica support with Pt loading of 3.2 wt% and particle diameter ranging from 2 to 5 nm. The electrocatalytic activity and stability for hydrogen evolution reaction were evaluated using cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry. At more negative potential than the hydrogen evolution of -250 mV vs. SCE, the catalyst shows high activity for hydrogen evolution with current density of 11.90 A g(Pt)(-1) mV(-1). The preparation procedure is simple and favorable for a variety of metal nanoparticles syntheses for catalysis applications.