The assessment of nanocrystalline surface defects on real versus model catalysts probed via vibrational spectroscopy of adsorbed CO

In this work we compare the experimental results for “real” fuel cell carbon supported Pt–Ru catalysts with the literature data for well defined model surfaces. The spectroscopic carbon monoxide probing, in the infrared region, clearly reveals differences in the reactivity of single-grain metal nanoparticles and multi-grained nanostructures with high concentrations of grain boundary defect regions. We use structural, spectroscopic and electrochemical information in an effort to rationalize the particle size and grain boundary effects in electrocatalysis.