Carbon-Supported Pd−Pt Nanoalloy with Low Pt Content and Superior Catalysis for Formic Acid Electro-oxidation

Abstract

Inspired by the “third-body” effect and the d-band center theory, a series of carbon black-supported PdxPt1−x (denoted as PdxPt1-x/C, with atomic fraction x = 0.5−1) nanocatalysts were synthesized and screened in order to pinpoint the optimal composition targeted for the electrocatalytic oxidation of formic acid. The effective alloying of these two elements is better demonstrated by the compositional dependent synergetic electrocatalysis identified for the as-synthesized PdxPt1−x/C nanoparticles rather than by the XRD characterization. Preliminary screening indicates that Pd0.9Pt0.1/C is the optimum catalyst for the desired reaction among all tested PdxPt1−x/C samples. This high performance of the Pd0.9Pt0.1 nanoalloy can be ascribed to the effectively inhibited CO poisoning at largely separated Pt sites and appropriately lowered d-band center of Pd sites.