Palladium-platinum core-shell icosahedra with substantially enhanced activity and durability towards oxygen reduction.

ABSTRACT: Conformal deposition of platinum as ultrathin shells on facet-controlled palladium nanocrystals offers a great opportunity to enhance the catalytic performance while reducing its loading. Here we report such a system based on palladium icosahedra. Owing to lateral confinement imposed by twin boundaries and thus vertical relaxation only, the platinum overlayers evolve into a corrugated structure under compressive strain. For the core-shell nanocrystals with an average of 2.7 platinum overlayers, their specific and platinum mass activities towards oxygen reduction are enhanced by eight- and sevenfold, respectively, relative to a commercial catalyst. Density functional theory calculations indicate that the enhancement can be attributed to the weakened binding of hydroxyl to the compressed pla

SUBMITTER: Wang X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4506534 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature