A cost-effective catalyst should have a high dispersion of the active atoms, together with a controllable surface structure for the optimization of activity, selectivity, or both. We fabricated nanocages by depositing a few atomic layers of platinum (Pt) as conformal shells on palladium (Pd) nanocrystals with well-defined facets and then etching away the Pd templates. Density functional theory calculations suggest that the etching is initiated via a mechanism that involves the formation of vacancies through the removal of Pd atoms incorporated into the outermost layer during the deposition of Pt. With the use of Pd nanoscale cubes and octahedra as templates, we obtained Pt cubic and octahedral nanocages enclosed by {100} and {111} facets, respectively, which exhibited distinctive catalytic activities toward oxygen reduction.

An effective strategy for reducing the Pt content while retaining the activity of a Pt-based catalyst is to deposit the Pt atoms as ultrathin skins of only a few atomic layers thick on nanoscale substrates made of another metal. During deposition, however, the Pt atoms often take an island growth mode because of a strong bonding between Pt atoms. Here we report a versatile route to the conformal deposition of Pt as uniform, ultrathin shells on Pd nanocubes in a solution phase. The introduction of the Pt precursor at a relatively slow rate and high temperature allowed the deposited Pt atoms to spread across the entire surface of a Pd nanocube to generate a uniform shell. The thickness of the Pt shell could be controlled from one to six atomic layers by varying the amount of Pt precursor added into the system. Compared to a commercial Pt/C catalyst, the Pd@PtnL (n = 1-6) core-shell nanocubes showed enhancements in specific activity and durability toward the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Density functional theory (DFT) calculations on model (100) surfaces suggest that the enhancement in specific activity can be attributed to the weakening of OH binding through ligand and strain effects, which, in turn, increases the rate of OH hydrogenation. A volcano-type relationship between the ORR specific activity and the number of Pt atomic layers was derived, in good agreement with the experimental results. Both theoretical and experimental studies indicate that the ORR specific activity was maximized for the catalysts based on Pd@Pt2-3L nanocubes. Because of the reduction in Pt content used and the enhancement in specific activity, the Pd@Pt1L nanocubes showed a Pt mass activity with almost three-fold enhancement relative to the Pt/C catalyst.

Conformal deposition of platinum as ultrathin shells on facet-controlled palladium nanocrystals offers a great opportunity to enhance the catalytic performance while reducing its loading. Here we report such a system based on palladium icosahedra. Owing to lateral confinement imposed by twin boundaries and thus vertical relaxation only, the platinum overlayers evolve into a corrugated structure under compressive strain. For the core-shell nanocrystals with an average of 2.7 platinum overlayers, their specific and platinum mass activities towards oxygen reduction are enhanced by eight- and sevenfold, respectively, relative to a commercial catalyst. Density functional theory calculations indicate that the enhancement can be attributed to the weakened binding of hydroxyl to the compressed platinum surface supported on palladium. After 10,000 testing cycles, the mass activity of the core-shell nanocrystals is still four times higher than the commercial catalyst. These results demonstrate an effective approach to the development of electrocatalysts with greatly enhanced activity and durability.

We systematically evaluated two different approaches to the syntheses of Pd@PtnL (n = 2-5) core-shell octahedra. We initially prepared the core-shell octahedra using a polyol-based route by titrating a Pt(IV) precursor into the growth solution containing Pd octahedral seeds at 200 °C through the use of a syringe pump. The number of Pt atomic layers could be precisely controlled from two to five by increasing the volume of the precursor solution while fixing the amount of seeds. We then demonstrated the synthesis of Pd@PtnL octahedra using a water-based route at 95 °C through the one-shot injection of a Pt(II) precursor. Due to the large difference in reaction temperature, the Pd@PtnL octahedra obtained via the water-based route showed sharper corners than their counterparts obtained through the polyol-based route. When compared to a commercial Pt/C catalyst based upon 3.2 nm Pt particles, the Pd@PtnL octahedra prepared using both methods showed similar remarkable enhancement in terms of activity (both specific and mass) and durability toward the oxygen reduction reaction. Calculations based upon periodic, self-consistent density functional theory suggested that the enhancement in specific activity for the Pd@PtnL octahedra could be attributed to the destabilization of OH on their PtnL*/Pd(111) surface relative to the {111} and {100} facets exposed on the surface of Pt/C. The destabilization of OH facilitates its hydrogenation, which was found to be the rate-limiting step of the oxygen reduction reaction on all these surfaces.

Nanocages have received considerable attention in recent years for catalytic applications owing to their high utilization efficiency of atoms and well-defined facets. Here we report, for the first time, the synthesis of Ru cubic nanocages with ultrathin walls, in which the atoms are crystallized in a face-centered cubic (fcc) rather than hexagonal close-packed (hcp) structure. The key to the success of this synthesis is to ensure layer-by-layer deposition of Ru atoms on the surface of Pd cubic seeds by controlling the reaction temperature and the injection rate of a Ru(III) precursor. By selectively etching away the Pd from the Pd@Ru core-shell nanocubes, we obtain Ru nanocages with an average wall thickness of 1.1 nm or about six atomic layers. Most importantly, the Ru nanocages adopt an fcc crystal structure rather than the hcp structure observed in bulk Ru. The synthesis has been successfully applied to Pd cubic seeds with different edge lengths in the range of 6-18 nm, with smaller seeds being more favorable for the formation of Ru shells with a flat, smooth surface due to shorter distance for the surface diffusion of the Ru adatoms. Self-consistent density functional theory calculations indicate that these unique fcc-structured Ru nanocages might possess promising catalytic properties for ammonia synthesis compared to hcp Ru(0001), on the basis of strengthened binding of atomic N and substantially reduced activation energies for N2 dissociation, which is the rate-determining step for ammonia synthesis on hcp Ru catalysts.

Engineering the elemental composition of metal nanocrystals offers an effective strategy for the development of catalysts or electrocatalysts with greatly enhanced activity. Herein, we report the synthesis of Pt-Ag alloy nanocages with an outer edge length of 18 nm and a wall thickness of about 3 nm. Such nanocages with a composition of PtAg could be readily prepared in one step through the galvanic replacement reaction between Ag nanocubes and a Pt(II) precursor. After 10 000 cycles of potential cycling in the range of 0.60-1.0 V as in an accelerated durability test, the composition of the nanocages changed to PtAg, together with a specific activity of 1.23 mA cm toward oxygen reduction, which was 3.3 times that of a state-of-the-art commercial Pt/C catalyst (0.37 mA cm) prior to durability testing. Density functional theory calculations attributed the increased activity to the stabilization of the transition state for breaking the O-O bond in molecular oxygen. Even after 30 000 cycles of potential cycling, the mass activity of the nanocages only dropped from 0.64 to 0.33 A mg, which was still about two times that of the pristine Pt/C catalyst (0.19 A mg).

Removing excess nitrate (NO3 –) from waste streams has become a significant environmental and health topic. However, realizing highly selective NO3 – conversion toward N2, primarily via electrocatalytic conversions, has proven challenging, largely because of the kinetically uncontrollable NO3 –-to-NO2 – pathway and unfavorable N–N coupling. Herein, we discovered unique and ultra-high electrocatalytic NO3 –-to-NO2 –activity on oxide-derived silver (OD-Ag). Up to 98% selectivity and 95% Faradaic efficiency (FE) of NO2 – were observed and maintained under a wide potential window. Benefiting from the superior NO3 –-to-NO2 –activity, further reduction of accumulated NO2 – to NH4 + was well regulated by the cathodic potential and achieved an NH4 + FE of 89%, indicating a tunable selectivity to the key nitrate reduction products (NO2 – or NH4 +) on OD-Ag. Density functional theory computations provided insights into the unique NO2 – selectivity on Ag electrodes compared with Cu, showing the critical role of a proton-assisted mechanism. Based on the ultra-high NO3 –-to-NO2 – activity on OD-Ag, we designed a novel electrocatalytic–catalytic combined process for denitrifying real-world NO3 –-containing agricultural wastewater, leading to 95+% of NO3 – conversion to N2 with minimal NOX gases. In addition to the wastewater treatment process to N2 and the electrochemical synthesis of NH3, NO2 – derived from electrocatalytic NO3 – conversion can serve as a reactive platform for the distributed production of various nitrogen products.

The design of heterogeneous catalysts is accelerated by the identification of thermochemical reactivity descriptors, which enable the prediction of promising materials through efficient screening. Motivated by previous discoveries of linear scaling relations between the adsorption energies of related atoms and molecules, we present a new scaling between the adsorption energies of metal atoms and metal–adsorbate complexes, which can be used to directly predict catalytically relevant molecular adsorption energies. In contrast to existing models based on the coordination number of surface atoms alone, our model can predict adsorption energies with site‐by‐site resolution considering local structural effects and also has potential extensions to include contributions of neighboring metal identity in alloy systems. Integration of this scaling with a previously identified model for metal–metal interactions enables the accurate prediction of molecular adsorption energies on nanoparticles by performing only a small set of slab‐based calculations.