Pt–Ni Alloy Nanoparticles via High-Temperature Shock as Efficient Electrocatalysts in the Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Abstract

Exploring effective synthetic protocols for electrocatalysts of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is vital to the practical application of alkaline fuel cells. Herein, a high-temperature shock (HTS) method is used to synthesize Pt–Ni alloy nanoparticles with various Pt/Ni ratios on a carbon support. The shock is provided by the Joule effect of current passing through the carbon paper. The ultrafast quenching process after the second-long current endows the as-synthesized alloy with an adjustable size and kinetically trapped dislocation features, which provides a degree of structure tuning toward electrocatalysts with improved ORR performance. Among the series of catalysts with various compositions, catalysts with a Pt/Ni ratio of 1 display a half-wave potential of 0.9 VRHE with a corresponding specific activity of 0.87 mA cm–2, roughly 6-fold that of the commercial Pt/C catalyst. The half-wave potential shows a limited negative shift after 5000 cycles of the durability test, proving the feasibility of fabricating carbon-supported Pt alloy catalysts from HTS with remarkable ORR activity and stability. The influence of composition and strain on the performance is investigated by the density-functional theory calculation.

Butterfly Effect of Electron Donor from Monoatomic Cobalt in Few-Atom Platinum Clusters: Boosting Electrocatalysis

“…For the ORR curves, the occasional peak at ∼0.30 V is attributed to hydrogen desorption on Pt(100) crystal facets. 44,45 Taking into account the results observed in STEM (Figure 1), the size of the majority Co 1 Pt x -5th clusters is concentrated at 0.74 nm, which corresponds to the model Co 1 Pt 38 (containing 38 Pt atoms, diameter is about 0.74 nm), based on the DFT calculation results shown in Figure S13. For size-dependent coordination numbers of Pt nanoclusters, 38 is the magic number that can exist stably.…”

Optimizing Pt-Based Alloy Electrocatalysts for Improved Hydrogen Evolution Performance in Alkaline Electrolytes: A Comprehensive Review

“…Pt–Ni alloys have gained widespread attention because of their excellent performance in catalytic energy-related reactions, such as the HER. , oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) , methanol oxidation reaction, , CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR), etc. PtNi alloys are generally crystallized in a face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal system, which is thermodynamically stable under normal temperature and pressure conditions.…”

Photocatalytic Synthesis of Ultrafine Pt Electrocatalysts with High Stability Using TiO2‐Decorated N‐Doped Carbon as Composite Support

“…Additional references cited within the Supporting Information. [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]…”