| Institution: | 1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of New Power Batteries, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of, Biomedical Functional Materials School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210023 P. R. China
These authors contributed equally to this work.;2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of New Power Batteries, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of, Biomedical Functional Materials School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210023 P. R. China;3. Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New and Renewable Energy Research and Development, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China |
| Abstract: | Systematically manipulating the shape, dimension, and surface structure of PdAu nanocrystals is an active subject because it offers a powerful means to regulate and investigate their structure–activity relationship. Meanwhile, it is still urgent to reduce the use of two-dimensional precious-metal-based nanomaterials. This work demonstrates that PdAu nanocrystals with a variety of shapes/dimensions, including 1D anisotropic nanowires, 2D porous nanosheets, and 3D penetrative nanoflowers, can be systematically synthesized by simply adjusting the atomic ratio or the reaction time in the same protocol. The resultant PdAu nanocrystals with distinctive shapes, but the same building blocks triumphantly avoid the effects of facet and surface properties; this represents an ideal platform for directly comparing the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity. 2D porous PdAu nanosheets demonstrate superior ORR performance (Eonset = 1.040 V, E1/2 = 0.932 V) compared with other-dimension-based samples and commercial Pd black; this is attributed to the abundant surface atoms and omni-directional mass-transfer channels. This work not only paves the way for systematically measuring a series of distinctive PdAu nanocrystals as non-Pt electrocatalysts, but also sheds light on the study of structures/dimensions in tuning the catalytic properties of bimetallic nanocrystals. |
