Issue 8, 2023

Small amounts of main group metal atoms matter: ultrathin Pd-based alloy nanowires enabling high activity and stability towards efficient oxygen reduction reaction and ethanol oxidation

Abstract

Proton-exchange membrane fuel cells are considered as promising energy-conversion devices. Alloying 3d transition metals with noble metals not only highly improves the performance of noble metal-based catalysts towards electrocatalytic reactions in fuel cells due to d–d hybridization interaction but also decreases the total cost. However, the rapid leaching of transition metal atoms leads to a fast decay of the activity, which seriously affects the performance of the fuel cell. Herein, alloyed Pd-main group metal (e.g. Pb, Bi, Sn) ultrathin nanowires were realized by a facile one-step wet-chemical strategy. The content of the main group metal could be tuned in a certain range while maintaining the same one-dimensional ultrathin nanowire morphology, which provided a large surface area and many more active sites. These Pd-based alloys showed a significant improvement in electrocatalytic activity and durability towards the oxygen reaction reaction as well as ethanol oxidation reaction. Optimal activity occurred when a small amount of main group metal existed, which could be explained through calculations by a strong p–d hybridization interaction between the main group metal and Pd to optimize the surface electronic structure collaboratively. Besides, high stability was achieved, which could be ascribed to the increased antioxidant activity of Pd by the main group metal. Furthermore, the low amount of the main group metal atoms also prevented them from leaching out of the crystal lattice.

Graphical abstract: Small amounts of main group metal atoms matter: ultrathin Pd-based alloy nanowires enabling high activity and stability towards efficient oxygen reduction reaction and ethanol oxidation

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Dez 2022
Accepted
16 Jan 2023
First published
17 Jan 2023

Nanoscale, 2023,15, 3772-3779

Small amounts of main group metal atoms matter: ultrathin Pd-based alloy nanowires enabling high activity and stability towards efficient oxygen reduction reaction and ethanol oxidation

Q. Chen, H. Jin, T. Cheng, Z. Wang, Y. Ren, J. Tian and Y. Zhu, Nanoscale, 2023, 15, 3772 DOI: 10.1039/D2NR07101K

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements