Nano Letters
Nano Letters
4 years ago

Facet-Dependent Deposition of Highly Strained Alloyed Shells on Intermetallic Nanoparticles for Enhanced Electrocatalysis

Facet-Dependent Deposition of Highly Strained Alloyed Shells on Intermetallic Nanoparticles for Enhanced Electrocatalysis
Raymond R. Unocic, Jocelyn T. L. Gamler, Chenyu Wang, Sara E. Skrabalak, Dennis P. Chen, Xiahan Sang
Surface strains can enhance the performance of platinum-based core@shell electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Bimetallic core@shell nanoparticles (NPs) are widely studied nanocatalysts but often have limited lattice mismatch and surface compositions; investigations of core@shell NPs with greater compositional complexity and lattice misfit are in their infancy. Here, a new class of multimetallic NPs composed of intermetallic cores and random alloy shells is reported. Specifically, face-centered cubic Pt–Cu random alloy shells were deposited on PdCu B2 intermetallic seeds in a facet-dependent manner, giving rise to faceted core@shell NPs with highly strained surfaces. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy revealed orientation-dependent surface strains, where the compressive strains were greater on Pt–Cu {200} than {111} facets. These core@shell NPs provide higher specific area and mass activities for the ORR when compared to conventional Pt–Cu NPs. Moreover, these intermetallic@random alloy NPs displayed high endurance, undergoing 10,000 cycles with only a slight decay in activity and no apparent structural changes.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b02239

DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b02239

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