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Nano Research 2021, 14(10): 3502-3508 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3642-2
Research Article | Issue | Published: 28 June 2021

Highly coordinated Pd overlayers on nanoporous gold for efficient formic acid electro-oxidation

Show Author's Information Qinqin Sang1,  Shuai Yin1,  Feng Liu2,  Huiming Yin1,  Jia He1,  Yi Ding1( )
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Porous Materials,Institute for New Energy Materials & Low-Carbon Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology,Tianjin,300384,China;
Kunming Institute of Precious Metals,Kunming,650106,China;
Keywords:
Pd, formic acid oxidation, nanoporous gold, high coordination number, direct formic acid fuel cell
Topics:
Catalysis
Cite this article:
Sang Q, Yin S, Liu F, et al. Highly coordinated Pd overlayers on nanoporous gold for efficient formic acid electro-oxidation. Nano Research, 2021, 14(10): 3502-3508. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3642-2
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Design and fabrication of highly efficient and stable electrocatalysts remain key challenges in green energy technologies such as low-temperature direct liquid fuel cells. Based on in-depth theoretical calculations, here we demonstrate that surface Pd atoms with high coordination numbers (HCNs) can effectively modulate their adsorption energies for CO and OH, and thus achieve very high performance for formic acid electro-oxidation reaction (FAOR). Based on epitaxial coating Pd atomic layers onto nanoporous gold (NPG) thin membranes and a slight further decoration of Au clusters on top, the resulted core-shell structured NPG-Pd-Au electrocatalyst can demonstrate Pd intrinsic and mass activities of 8.62 mA·cm-2 and 27.25 A·mg-1 respectively at the peak potential around 0.33 V versus saturated calomel electrode toward FAOR, which are far better than those of commercial Pd/C catalysts (1.09 mA·cm-2 and 0.32 A·mg-1) tested under the same conditions. Moreover, the membrane electrode assemblies based on these low precious metal loading electrodes can achieve an anode Pd power efficiency over 10 W·mg-1 in a direct formic acid fuel cell, which is two orders of magnitude higher than that of the commercial Pd/C. These results provide new inspirations for the development of revolutionary electrodes for energy technologies in a rational manner.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Highly coordinated Pd overlayers on nanoporous gold for efficient formic acid electro-oxidation

Show Author's information Qinqin Sang1, Shuai Yin1, Feng Liu2, Huiming Yin1, Jia He1, Yi Ding1( )
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Porous Materials,Institute for New Energy Materials & Low-Carbon Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology,Tianjin,300384,China;
Kunming Institute of Precious Metals,Kunming,650106,China;

Abstract

Design and fabrication of highly efficient and stable electrocatalysts remain key challenges in green energy technologies such as low-temperature direct liquid fuel cells. Based on in-depth theoretical calculations, here we demonstrate that surface Pd atoms with high coordination numbers (HCNs) can effectively modulate their adsorption energies for CO and OH, and thus achieve very high performance for formic acid electro-oxidation reaction (FAOR). Based on epitaxial coating Pd atomic layers onto nanoporous gold (NPG) thin membranes and a slight further decoration of Au clusters on top, the resulted core-shell structured NPG-Pd-Au electrocatalyst can demonstrate Pd intrinsic and mass activities of 8.62 mA·cm-2 and 27.25 A·mg-1 respectively at the peak potential around 0.33 V versus saturated calomel electrode toward FAOR, which are far better than those of commercial Pd/C catalysts (1.09 mA·cm-2 and 0.32 A·mg-1) tested under the same conditions. Moreover, the membrane electrode assemblies based on these low precious metal loading electrodes can achieve an anode Pd power efficiency over 10 W·mg-1 in a direct formic acid fuel cell, which is two orders of magnitude higher than that of the commercial Pd/C. These results provide new inspirations for the development of revolutionary electrodes for energy technologies in a rational manner.

Keywords: Pd, formic acid oxidation, nanoporous gold, high coordination number, direct formic acid fuel cell

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 15 March 2021
Revised: 21 May 2021
Accepted: 02 June 2021
Published: 28 June 2021
Issue date: October 2021

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51901156, 52073214, and U1804255) and the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 51825102). We also thank the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen for providing the computational resources and material studio.

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