Nanoporous silver using pulsed laser deposition for high-performance oxygen reduction reaction and hydrogen peroxide sensing

Abstract

Silver (Ag)-based materials have shown great application potential in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) detection. The porous structures of Ag have attracted a lot of research interest due to their large specific surface area and high electrochemical activity. In this work, nanoporous Ag structures composed of nano-sized particles were prepared by a one-step pulsed laser deposition (PLD) under controlled background gas pressure. The porous PLD-Ag showed a high ORR performance (E_onset: 1.007 V vs. RHE, E_1/2: 0.863 V vs. RHE), high sensitivity (613.1 μA cm⁻² mM⁻¹ at −0.2 V vs. SCE) and selectivity for H₂O₂ detection. The PLD technique provided a new, yet universal approach to producing high-performance, metal-based electrochemical electrodes.