One-pot synthesis of 3D surface-wrinkled PdAu nanospheres for robust alcohols electrocatalysis

Nannan Zhang; Kewang Zhang; Jie Li; Changqing Ye; Yukou Du

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.07.121

One-pot synthesis of 3D surface-wrinkled PdAu nanospheres for robust alcohols electrocatalysis

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Nov 15;650(Pt B):1509-1517. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.07.121. Epub 2023 Jul 20.

Authors

Nannan Zhang¹, Kewang Zhang¹, Jie Li¹, Changqing Ye², Yukou Du³

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Environment Functional Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215009, China. Electronic address: yechangqing@mail.usts.edu.cn.
³ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China; School of Optical and Electronic Information, Suzhou City University, Suzhou 215104, China. Electronic address: duyk@suda.edu.cn.

PMID: 37487281
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.07.121

Abstract

Three dimensional (3D) noble-metal nanomaterials with special surface structures have been regarded as high-performance catalysts for alcohol oxidation on account of their superior thermal stability, electrical conductivity and large specific surface area. Although extensive efforts have been devoted to the preparation of 3D Pd-based catalysts with superior activity and stability, designing a simple, effective and eco-friendly method remains a challenge. Herein, we developed a facile one-step coreduction strategy to synthesize a series of 3D surface-wrinkled PdAu nanospheres (NSs) with tunable Pd/Au atomic ratios and found a universal method to prepare surface-wrinkled PdM (M = Au, Pt, Cu and Pb) NSs. Benefiting from the function of the surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC), the synthesized PdAu NSs with different composition possess abundant surface wrinkles, which is beneficial for exposing more electroactive centers. Attributed to the unique geometric morphology and optimized atomic ratio, the PdAu-2 NSs exhibited an optimal mass activity (MA) of 8103 mA mg^-1 and 5113 mA mg^-1 for the ethylene glycol oxidation reaction (EGOR) and ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR), which was 6.1 and 4.1 times that of commercial Pd/C, respectively. Moreover, the PdAu-2 NSs exhibited superb stability after long-term current-time (i-t) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) tests of the EGOR and EOR. This work not only provides new avenues to engineer PdAu NSs with enhanced electrocatalytic performance but also offers guidance for extending to more 3D PdM (M = other metals) NSs with novel morphology applied to fuel cell fields.

Keywords: 3D PdAu nanospheres; Ethanol oxidation reaction; Ethylene glycol oxidation reaction; Optimized atomic ratio; Surface wrinkles.