Construction of ultrathin PdPtSn nanosheet for alcohol oxidation reaction

Abstract

Pd-based nanosheets are potential catalysts for direct alcohol fuel cells since their abundant active sites and huge specific areas. Because of the special properties of nanosheets, enormous efforts have been paid to explore excellent performance Pd-based nanosheets. There is still a great challenge to synthesize novel nanosheets for alcohol oxidation. Here, we develop a low-temperature seed-oriented approach to synthesize Pd-based nanosheets by a two-step method. The produced PdPtSn nanosheets inherit the morphology of Pd nanosheets but dramatically increase electrochemistry activity, which could be attributed to the synergistic effect among Pd, Pt, and Sn. The ultrathin PdPtSn NSs own a huge surface and high electrical conductivity that perform catalytic activity at 4.1 A mgPd−1 for methanol oxidation far beyond commercial Pd/C. Meanwhile, PdPtSn NSs keep 0.82 A mgPd−1 after 500 cycles in alkaline environment for methanol oxidaton, which is attributed to the modified electronic structure of the Pd by the addition of Pt and Sn. The prepared PdPtSn NSs also perform high catalytic activity for glycol oxidation reaction with 16.2 A mgPd−1 which is about 20 times more than that of commercial Pd/C. This work provides a new strategy to make Pd-based nanosheets for highly efficient MOR electrocatalysts.