Dresden 2026 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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MM: Fachverband Metall- und Materialphysik
MM 39: Hydrogen in Materials II
MM 39.6: Vortrag
Freitag, 13. März 2026, 11:45–12:00, SCH/A215
Diffusion of hydrogen in platinum during HER catalysis — Aparna Saksena1, Bingxin Li1, Yujun Zhao1, J. Manoj Prabhakar1, Mira Todorova1, Jörg Neugebauer1, Dierk Raabe1, Baptiste Gault1,2, and •Yug Joshi1 — 1Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials (MPI-SusMat), Max Max-Planck-Straße 1, 40237 Düsseldorf — 2Univ Rouen Normandie, CNRS, INSA Rouen Normandie, Groupe de Physique des Matériaux, UMR 6634, F-76000 Rouen, France
Platinum remains the most common electrocatalyst used for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in acidic conditions. It is generally believed to act as a proton-blocking catalyst with adsorption of reaction intermediates limited to its surface. In this study, we thoroughly examine how Pt interacts with hydrogen and deuterium (H/D) within the bulk by monitoring the mass change of a Pt electrode in real-time during galvanostatic heavy/water splitting, using an electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance. Surprisingly, we observe an irreversible mass increase over time along with changes in the overpotential for both HER and DER. Atom probe tomography of the Pt electrode after DER confirms that D diffuses into the bulk. The results are supported by density functional theory, showing the formation of an interstitial solid solution of H in Pt. These results challenge the conventional belief that Pt-proton interactions are only surface-limited. They suggest a need to revisit catalyst design strategies, which currently focus on surface-adsorbed species and the rate-limiting Volmer step, by also considering the bulk diffusion of H/D within the Pt matrix.
Keywords: hydrogen evolution reaction; platinum; diffusion