2.2. Preparation of platinum-deposited BDD (Pt-BDD) electrodes
BDD electrodes were deposited on Si(100) wafers in a microwave
plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition (MPVCD) system (ASTeX
Corp.). Detail of the preparation has been described elsewhere [14]. A
mixture of acetone and methanol in a ratio of 9:1 (v/v) was used as the
carbon source. Trimethoxy borate, used as the boron source, was dissolved
in acetone–methanol solution at a B/C atomic ratio of 1:100. Characterization
performed using Raman (Princeton Instrument, Acton
sp2500) and SEM (JEOL, JPS-9010TR) suggested that the prepared BDD
has a fine quality [16]. Deposition of platinum particles at the BDD surface
was performed by cyclic voltammetry method in the potential range of
−0.5 V to 0.8 V at 100 mV s−1 in 0.1 M of H2SO4 containing 0.1 mM of
H2PtCl6·6H2O. SEM was used to study the morphology of the obtained
Pt-BDD electrode and XPS was used to study the chemical composition.