Abstract
We investigated the effects of Pt nano electrodeposits on the corrosion of carbon substrate in an acidic solution. The electrodes for experiments were prepared by electrodepositing Pt on carbon substrate in a solution of 5 mM $H_2PtCl_6$ and 0.5 M $H_2SO_4$ using pulse deposition technique. In cyclic voltammograms for the carbon electrodes with and without Pt nano electrodeposits, total anodic current including both currents from oxygen evolution reaction and carbon corrosion increased abruptly above a critical potential. In addition, the critical potential of the carbon electrodes with Pt nano electrodeposits was lower than that of bare carbon electrode. This phenomenon was more prominent at $75^{\circ}C$ than $25^{\circ}C$. In potentiostatic experiments, the current transients and the corresponding power spectral density increased with increasing the applied potential for the electrodes. Furthermore, the current transients for the carbon electrodes with Pt nano electrodeposits were much higher than those for the bare carbon substrate. This indicates that the corrosion of carbon substrate can be highly accelerated by Pt nano electrodeposits.
