Abstract
Thermal annealing is usually employed for performance enhancement of catalysts while the reason is still unclear. Herein, performance improvement of a promising Pd/FeP system via thermal annealing to provide enhanced active sites, as a proof of concept, was demonstrated for the formic acid oxidation reaction. Two kinds of active sites of Pd and Pd@FeP were indicated in Pd/FeP catalyst by the well-recognized CO stripping technique; the low active/unstable Pd sites could be transformed into more active Pd@FeP sites via thermal annealing and electrochemical reduction. The best catalytic activity of annealed Pd/FeP catalyst was 1.6 times of fresh Pd/FeP and 2.8 times of Pd/C catalysts. A maximum catalytic efficiency increased by 65 % was revealed owing to the Pd@FeP active sites formation; as high as 55 % of the initial current was maintained after the accelerated stability test for 1000 cycles. The result helps understand the thermal annealing effect on electro-catalyst performance improvement.
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