Size-dependent synthesis and catalytic activities of trimetallic PdAgCu mesoporous nanospheres in ethanol electrooxidation

Abstract

in the electrocatalytic ethanol oxidation reaction, 1.1-1.7 fold higher than that of MNSs with smaller or larger sizes and 5.9 fold higher than that of commercial Pd black catalyst. By means of kinetic studies, the size-dependent electrocatalytic performance can be ascribed to the optimization and balance between electron transfer and mass transfer processes inside PdAgCu MNSs. We expect that the size effect of multimetallic MNS nanocatalysts presented here may provide a general synthetic methodology for rational design of size-dependent nanocatalysts for a broad range of applications.