Pt Nanoclusters Anchored on Hollow Ag-Au Nanostructures for Electrochemical Oxidation of Methanol

Xinghe Li,Wang Zhang,Bingyi Yan,Xinyu Qin,Huiling Huang,Yuanzhe Piao

doi:10.3390/catal10121440

Xinghe Li, Wang Zhang + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/catal10121440

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Abstract

The synthetic method of Pt nanocluster-anchored hollow Ag-Au nanostructures and measurements of their electrocatalytic properties for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) are reported here. In this synthesis, uniform Ag nanospheres were prepared by reduction of silver nitrate (AgNO3) with sodium borohydride (NaBH4) and then hollow Ag-Au nanostructures were synthesized via galvanic replacement of the as-prepared Ag nanospheres with Au3+. Finally, the reduction of potassium tetrachloroplatinate (II) (K2PtCl4) with ascorbic acid was performed to deposit Pt nanoclusters on the surface of hollow Ag-Au nanostructures. The hollow interior of Pt nanocluster-anchored Ag-Au nanostructures and change in the size of Pt nanoclusters by varying the injected molar ratio of Pt/Au were observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Moreover, other morphological, compositional, and optical information of the obtained nanoscale materials were analyzed by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis). The electrocatalytic ability of the obtained Pt nanocluster-anchored hollow Ag-Au nanostructures toward MOR was confirmed by the results of cyclic voltametric (CV) measurements. The ease of three-step synthetic strategy and good electrocatalytic performance of the Pt nanocluster-anchored hollow Ag-Au nanostructures displayed their promising potential in the use of electrochemical oxidation of methanol.

Highlights

Severe energy problems have attracted increasing attention recently, and direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) are regarded as one of the new energy resources, with their advantages of high power density, low operating temperatures, convenient transportations of methanol, etc. [1,2,3,4]
Catalysts 2020, 10, 1440 poisoning effect caused by carbon monoxide (CO) which forms in the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) as one kind of intermediate product and firmly attaches to the surface of Pt portion, leading to fewer available active sites of Pt [5,6,7,8]
Ag nanospheres are used as thebegins sacrificial in theof preparation of

Summary

Introduction

Severe energy problems have attracted increasing attention recently, and direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) are regarded as one of the new energy resources, with their advantages of high power density, low operating temperatures, convenient transportations of methanol, etc. [1,2,3,4]. Catalysts 2020, 10, 1440 poisoning effect caused by carbon monoxide (CO) which forms in the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) as one kind of intermediate product and firmly attaches to the surface of Pt portion, leading to fewer available active sites of Pt [5,6,7,8]. Another thing that limits the extensive use of Pt-based catalysts is the extravagant price [9,10,11]. Hu and colleagues applied a galvanic replacement approach to synthesize a novel graphene-supported hollow Pt-Ni nanocatalyst, which exhibits high activity toward the MOR because of unique hollow structure and the synergistic effect between Pt and Ni [35]

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