Ultrathin Porous WPdH Nanosheet Assemblies for Efficient Alkaline Oxygen Reduction
Hongjing Wang, Tongqing Zhou, Kai Deng, Wenjing Tian, Hongjie Yu, You Xu, Xiao‐Nian Li, Ziqiang Wang, Liang Wang
Abstract
The design of active and durable cathodic electrocatalysts is critical for practical fuel cell applications. Although Pd is a promising candidate to replace Pt for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), it usually suffers from lower activity. Here, a two-step method is reported to synthesize tungsten–palladium bimetallic hydrides with a porous nanosheet assembly structure (WPd–H NSAs) as high-performance ORR electrocatalysts. The introduction of H atoms to Pd and curved porous nanosheet structures can induce the strain and electronic effects, leading to the weaker binding energy of O on Pd. The WPd–H NSAs show a superior ORR activity of 1.51 mA μgPd–1, 10.43 times that of Pt/C. This hydrogenation approach would open the way to design high-efficiency palladium-based nanomaterials with controlled morphology for ORR.