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Nano Research Energy 2022, 1: 9120017 https://doi.org/10.26599/NRE.2022.9120017
Research Article | Open Access | Issue | Published: 24 June 2022

Light doping of tungsten into copper-platinum nanoalloys for boosting their electrocatalytic performance in methanol oxidation

Show Author's Information Danye Liu1,2,  Qing Zeng1,2,  Chaoquan Hu1,3,  Dong Chen1,3( ),  Hui Liu1,3,  Yongsheng Han1,  Lin Xu4( ),  Qingbo Zhang5,  Jun Yang1,2,3( )
State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Complex Systems, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Nanjing IPE Institute of Green Manufacturing Industry, Nanjing 211100, China
School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of New Power Batteries, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Centre of Biomedical Functional Materials, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
Keywords:
electrocatalysis, methanol oxidation reaction, lattice strain, d-band center, hydrogen spillover
Cite this article:
Liu D, Zeng Q, Hu C, et al. Light doping of tungsten into copper-platinum nanoalloys for boosting their electrocatalytic performance in methanol oxidation. Nano Research Energy, 2022, 1: 9120017. https://doi.org/10.26599/NRE.2022.9120017
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Coupling the bi-functional mechanism with compressive lattice strain might be an effective way to boost the electrocatalysis of platinum (Pt)-based nanoparticles for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). This strategy weakens the chemisorption of poisoning CO-like intermediates generated during MOR on the active Pt sites by lowering their d-band center. In this context, we herein report the synthesis of ternary copper-tungsten-platinum (CuWPt) nanoalloys with light doping of W element by simply co-reducing their precursors at elevated temperature. In this ternary alloy system, the presence of only small amount of W element not only weakens the chemisorption of CO-like intermediates by lowering the Pt d-band center through compressive lattice strain, but also cleans the active Pt sites by "hydrogen spillover effect", endowing the as-prepared CuWPt nanoalloys at an appropriate Cu/W/Pt ratio with good activity for MOR. In specific, the ternary CuWPt alloy nanoparticles at a Cu/W/Pt molar ratio of 21/4/75 show a specific activity of 2.5 mA·cm−2 and a mass activity of 2.11 A·mg−1 with a better durability, outperforming those ternary CuWPt alloy nanoparticles at other Cu/W/Pt ratios, binary CuPt alloys and commercial Pt/C catalyst as well as a large number of reported Pt-based electrocatalysts. In addition, a single direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) assembled using ternary CuWPt nanoalloys as anodic catalysts shows a power density of 24.3 mW·cm−2 and an open-circle voltage of 0.6 V, also much higher than those of the single DMFC assembled from commercial Pt/C catalysts.


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Abstract
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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Light doping of tungsten into copper-platinum nanoalloys for boosting their electrocatalytic performance in methanol oxidation

Show Author's information Danye Liu1,2, Qing Zeng1,2, Chaoquan Hu1,3, Dong Chen1,3( ), Hui Liu1,3, Yongsheng Han1, Lin Xu4( ), Qingbo Zhang5, Jun Yang1,2,3( )
State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Complex Systems, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Nanjing IPE Institute of Green Manufacturing Industry, Nanjing 211100, China
School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of New Power Batteries, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Centre of Biomedical Functional Materials, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA

Abstract

Coupling the bi-functional mechanism with compressive lattice strain might be an effective way to boost the electrocatalysis of platinum (Pt)-based nanoparticles for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). This strategy weakens the chemisorption of poisoning CO-like intermediates generated during MOR on the active Pt sites by lowering their d-band center. In this context, we herein report the synthesis of ternary copper-tungsten-platinum (CuWPt) nanoalloys with light doping of W element by simply co-reducing their precursors at elevated temperature. In this ternary alloy system, the presence of only small amount of W element not only weakens the chemisorption of CO-like intermediates by lowering the Pt d-band center through compressive lattice strain, but also cleans the active Pt sites by "hydrogen spillover effect", endowing the as-prepared CuWPt nanoalloys at an appropriate Cu/W/Pt ratio with good activity for MOR. In specific, the ternary CuWPt alloy nanoparticles at a Cu/W/Pt molar ratio of 21/4/75 show a specific activity of 2.5 mA·cm−2 and a mass activity of 2.11 A·mg−1 with a better durability, outperforming those ternary CuWPt alloy nanoparticles at other Cu/W/Pt ratios, binary CuPt alloys and commercial Pt/C catalyst as well as a large number of reported Pt-based electrocatalysts. In addition, a single direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) assembled using ternary CuWPt nanoalloys as anodic catalysts shows a power density of 24.3 mW·cm−2 and an open-circle voltage of 0.6 V, also much higher than those of the single DMFC assembled from commercial Pt/C catalysts.

Keywords: electrocatalysis, methanol oxidation reaction, lattice strain, d-band center, hydrogen spillover

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Received: 03 June 2022
Revised: 15 June 2022
Accepted: 17 June 2022
Published: 24 June 2022
Issue date: September 2022

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© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Tsinghua University Press.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 22075290, and 21972068), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. Z200012), the State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Complex Systems, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. MPCS-2021-A-05), and Nanjing IPE Institute of Green Manufacturing Industry (No. E0010725).

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