Cathodic corrosion for producing nanoparticles was (re)discovered when trying to control the electrochemical etching of a scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tip.

We have shown that the metal nanoparticles (NPs) and their alloys can be easily produced by using cathodic corrosion and their sizes and compositions can be controlled. The produced  NPs were shown to have high catalytic activity and superior to the commercial ones. Since cathodic corrosion is radically different from all other existing methods of NP synthesis, its ability for tuning properties of NPs is still relatively unexplored, and hence improved characteristics are still expected. Given the enormous simplicity and versatility of the method, we believe that cathodic corrosion has unique potential.

In 2016, we have greatly advanced this method, including the inhibition of agglomeration, the scaling up of NP production and the in-situ impregnation of functional nanocomposites. This work is funded by STW (NWO TTW).