Surface engineering of hierarchical platinum-cobalt nanowires for efficient electrocatalysis

By Lingzheng Bu, Shaojun Guo, Xu Zhang, Xuan Shen, D. Su, G. Lu, Xing Zhu, Jianlin Yao, Junxiang Guo, Xiaoqing Huang. Nature Communications, 2016

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Despite intense research in past decades, the lack of high-performance catalysts for fuel cell reactions remains a challenge in realizing fuel cell technologies for transportation applications. Here we report a facile strategy for synthesizing hierarchical platinum-cobalt nanowires with high-index, platinum-rich facets and ordered intermetallic structure. These structural features enable unprecedented performance for the oxygen reduction and alcohol oxidation reactions. The specific/mass activities of the platinum-cobalt nanowires for oxygen reduction reaction are 39.6/33.7 times higher than commercial Pt/C catalyst, respectively. Density functional theory simulations reveal that the active threefold hollow sites on the platinum-rich high-index facets provide an additional factor in enhancing oxygen reduction reaction activities. The nanowires are stable in the electrochemical conditions and also thermally stable. This work may represent a key step towards scalable production of high-performance platinum-based nanowires for applications in catalysis and energy conversion. Platinum-based nanowires are promising for fuel cell applications due to their high catalytic activity. Here the authors report on hierarchical platinum-cobalt nanowires with high-index facets showing specific/mass activities for oxygen reduction reaction 39.6/33.7 times higher than commercial Pt/C catalyst.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a03cd9f82b0dec7211cf69706a584e76e88be92c