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Open Access Research Article Just Accepted
Decoupling activity and stability in PtNiMoRu nanowires for durable acid oxygen electroreduction
Nano Research
Available online: 23 May 2026
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Unlocking the full potential of PtNi alloy electrocatalysts for the acidic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is significantly restricted by the inevitable dissolution of Ni species. Herein, we present a rational design of tetrametallic PtNiMoRu nanowires (NWs) that decouples the origins of stability and activity via a dual-doping strategy. By coordinating the distinct roles of constituent elements, we demonstrate that Mo doping primarily acts as a lattice stabilizer by increasing the Ni vacancy formation energy to immobilize Ni atoms, while Ru doping optimizes the d-band center of Pt active sites to facilitate intermediate kinetics. Consequently, the optimized PtNiMoRu NWs/C exhibits an exceptional mass activity of 1.04 A mgPt-1 and specific activity of 2.81 mA cm-2 at 0.9 V vs. RHE, representing 5.2-fold and 8.3-fold enhancements over commercial Pt/C, respectively. Most notably, the catalyst demonstrates superior durability with a negligible half-wave potential decay of only 9 mV after 30,000 accelerated durability test cycles. In a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), this nanowire catalyst delivers a peak power density of 1.18 W cm-2. This work provides a paradigm for designing durable multi-metallic catalysts by precisely engineering element-specific functionalities within the alloy architecture.

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