Insights Into the Oxygen Reduction Reaction Activity of Pt/C and PtCu/C Catalysts

Electrocatalysis will play a key role in future energy conversion and storage technologies, such as water electrolysers, fuel cells and metal-air batteries. Molecular interactions between chemical reactants and the catalytic surface control the activity and efficiency, and hence need to be optimized; however, generalized experimental strategies to do so are scarce. Here we show how lattice strain can be used experimentally to tune the catalytic activity of dealloyed bimetallic nanoparticles for the oxygen-reduction reaction, a key barrier to the application of fuel cells and metal-air batteries. We demonstrate the core-shell structure of the catalyst and clarify the mechanistic origin of its activity. The platinum-rich shell exhibits compressive strain, which results in a shift of the electronic band structure of platinum and weakening chemisorption of oxygenated species. We combine synthesis, measurements and an understanding of strain from theory to generate a reactivity-strain relationship that provides guidelines for tuning electrocatalytic activity.

The slow rate of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is the main limitation for automotive applications. We demonstrated that the Pt3Ni(111) surface is 10-fold more active for the ORR than the corresponding Pt(111) surface and 90-fold more active than the current state-of-the-art Pt/C catalysts for PEMFC. The Pt3Ni(111) surface has an unusual electronic structure (d-band center position) and arrangement of surface atoms in the near-surface region. Under operating conditions relevant to fuel cells, its near-surface layer exhibits a highly structured compositional oscillation in the outermost and third layers, which are Pt-rich, and in the second atomic layer, which is Ni-rich. The weak interaction between the Pt surface atoms and nonreactive oxygenated species increases the number of active sites for O2 adsorption.