Synthesis of PdH0.43 nanocrystals with different surface structures and their catalytic activities towards formic acid electro-oxidation

Abstract

The synthesis of nanocrystals (NCs) with defined morphology and surface structure provides an effective way to investigate the structure-activity relationship of nanocatalytsts, and it will facilitate the design of nanocatalysts with excellent catalytic performance. In this paper, we developed a facile method to synthesize PdH0.43 NCs with the shape of cube, octahedron and rhombic dodecahedron (RD), whose surface facets are {100}, {111} and {110}, respectively. The as-prepared PdH0.43 NCs are highly stable and exhibit enhanced catalytic activity and extremely low overpotential towards electro-oxidation of formic acid compared with the commercial Pd black and three types of Pd NCs. The specific activity of the cubic PdH0.43 NCs is more than five times that of the commercial Pd black and two times that of the cubic Pd NCs. Among the three types of PdH0.43 NCs with different surface structure, the activity order is followed by PdH0.43 {100} > PdH0.43 {111} > PdH0.43 {110}.