Enhanced adhesion of continuous nanoporous Au layers by thermochemical oxidation of glassy carbon

The fabrication of a nanoporous gold (NPG)-based catalyst on a glassy carbon (GC) support results normally in large isolated and poorly adhering clusters that suffer considerable material loss upon durability testing. This work exploits thermochemical oxidation of GC, which, coupled with the utilization of some recent progress in fabricating continuous NPG layers using a Pd seed layer, aims to enhance the adhesion to the GC surface. Thermochemical oxidation causes interconnected pores within the GC structure to open and substantially improves the wettability of the GC surface, which are both beneficial toward the improvement of the overall quality of the NPG deposit. It is demonstrated that thermochemical oxidation neither affects the efficiency of the Au _0.3 Ag _0.7 alloy (NPG precursor) deposition nor hinders the achievement of continuity in the course of the NPG fabrication process. Furthermore, adhesion tests performed by a rotating disk electrode setup on deposits supported on thermochemically-oxidized and untreated GCs ascertain the enhanced adhesion on the thermochemically-oxidized samples. The best adhesion results are obtained on a continuous NPG layer fabricated on thermochemically-oxidized GC electrodes seeded with a dense network of Pd clusters.