Palladium atomic layers coated on ultrafine gold nanowires boost oxygen reduction reaction

Di-Ye Wei; Guan-Nan Xing; Heng-Quan Chen; Xiao-Qun Xie; Hui-Mei Huang; Jin-Chao Dong; Jing-Hua Tian; Hua Zhang; Jian-Feng Li

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.07.080

Palladium atomic layers coated on ultrafine gold nanowires boost oxygen reduction reaction

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Nov 15;650(Pt B):1518-1524. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.07.080. Epub 2023 Jul 13.

Authors

Di-Ye Wei¹, Guan-Nan Xing¹, Heng-Quan Chen¹, Xiao-Qun Xie¹, Hui-Mei Huang¹, Jin-Chao Dong¹, Jing-Hua Tian², Hua Zhang³, Jian-Feng Li⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Materials, State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, MOE Key Laboratory of Spectrochemical Analysis and Instrumentation, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, iChEM, Fujian Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
² Innovation Laboratory for Sciences and Technologies of Energy Materials of Fujian Province (IKKEM), Xiamen, China. Electronic address: jhtian@xmu.edu.cn.
³ College of Materials, State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, MOE Key Laboratory of Spectrochemical Analysis and Instrumentation, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, iChEM, Fujian Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China; Innovation Laboratory for Sciences and Technologies of Energy Materials of Fujian Province (IKKEM), Xiamen, China. Electronic address: zhanghua@xmu.edu.cn.
⁴ College of Materials, State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, MOE Key Laboratory of Spectrochemical Analysis and Instrumentation, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, iChEM, Fujian Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China; Innovation Laboratory for Sciences and Technologies of Energy Materials of Fujian Province (IKKEM), Xiamen, China; Shenzhen Research Institute of Xiamen University, Shenzhen 518000, China; College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, China. Electronic address: Li@xmu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37487282
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.07.080

Abstract

Palladium-based nanocatalysts play an important role in catalyzing the cathode oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) for fuel cells working under alkaline conditions, but the performance still needs to be improved to meet the requirements for large-scale applications. Herein, Au@Pd core-shell nanowires have been developed by coating Pd atomic layers on ultrafine gold nanowires and display outstanding electrocatalytic performance towards alkaline ORR. It is found that Pd overlayers with atomic thickness can be coated on 3 nm Au nanowires under CO atmosphere and completely cover the surfaces. The obtained ultrafine Au@Pd nanowires exhibit an electrochemical active area (ECSA) of 68.5 m²/g and a mass activity of 0.91 A/mg (at 0.9 V vs. RHE), which is around 3.1 and 15.2 times higher than that of commercial Pd/C. The activity loss of the ultrafine Au@Pd nanowire after 10,000 cycles of accelerated degradation tests is only ∼20 %, demonstrating its much better stability compared to commercial Pd/C. Further characterizations combined with density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrate that the electronic interactions between Pd atomic layers and underlying Au can increase the electronic density of Pd and promote the efficient activation of oxygen, thus leading to the improved ORR performance.

Keywords: Core-shell nanostructures; Fuel cells; Oxygen reduction reaction; Pd-based catalysts; Ultrafine nanowires.