Pd Nanoparticles Coupled to WO2.72 Nanorods for Enhanced Electrochemical Oxidation of Formic Acid

Zheng Xi; Daniel P Erdosy; Adriana Mendoza-Garcia; Paul N Duchesne; Junrui Li; Michelle Muzzio; Qing Li; Peng Zhang; Shouheng Sun

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b00870

Pd Nanoparticles Coupled to WO_2.72 Nanorods for Enhanced Electrochemical Oxidation of Formic Acid

Nano Lett. 2017 Apr 12;17(4):2727-2731. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b00870. Epub 2017 Mar 22.

Authors

Zheng Xi¹, Daniel P Erdosy¹, Adriana Mendoza-Garcia¹, Paul N Duchesne², Junrui Li¹, Michelle Muzzio¹, Qing Li³, Peng Zhang², Shouheng Sun¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Brown University , Providence, Rhode Island 02912, United States.
² Department of Chemistry, Dalhousie University , Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2, Canada.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan, Hubei 430074, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 28318266
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b00870

Abstract

We synthesize a new type of hybrid Pd/WO_2.72 structure with 5 nm Pd nanoparticles (NPs) anchored on 50 × 5 nm WO_2.72 nanorods. The strong Pd/WO_2.72 coupling results in the lattice expansion of Pd from 0.23 to 0.27 nm and the decrease of Pd surface electron density. As a result, the Pd/WO_2.72 shows much enhanced catalysis toward electrochemical oxidation of formic acid in 0.1 M HClO₄; it has a mass activity of ∼1600 mA/mg_Pd in a broad potential range of 0.4-0.85 V (vs RHE) and shows no obvious activity loss after a 12 h chronoamperometry test at 0.4 V. Our work demonstrates an important strategy to enhance Pd NP catalyst efficiency for energy conversion reactions.

Keywords: Palladium; electrocatalysis; formic acid oxidation; nanohybrids; tungsten oxide.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Grants and funding

CIHR/Canada