Monodisperse Sea-Urchin-like Nanodendrites and Nanoparticles of Multicomponent Pd-Based Alloys for Enhanced C<sub>2</sub> Alcohol Oxidation Activity
Xianzhuo Lao, Xingxue Zhang, Tong Sun, Aiping Fu, Yuxiang Zhang, Ze Li, Likang Yang, Chen Chen, Xuejiang Liao, Jiasheng Wang, Wanneng Ye, Peizhi Guo
Abstract
Simultaneous regulation of the morphology and electronic properties of precious metals is essential to achieve satisfactory energy-related electrocatalytic reactions. Herein, we synthesize a class of monodisperse sea-urchin-like nanodendrites (NDs) and monodisperse nanoparticles (NPs) of unary Pd, binary PdM, and ternary PdPbM alloys with face-centered cubic structures in a general way for the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR), where the morphologies and sizes of two kinds of nanocrystals can be interconverted by changing the solvent (oleylamine/ N, N -dimethylformamide, DMF) under the same condition. Interestingly, unveiling the synergistic effect (strain effect and ligand effect) and electronic properties ( d -band center) has been proven to learn the mechanism for enhanced electrocatalytic activity. Benefiting from the as-made sea-urchin-like PdPbAg NDs with a tensile strain value of 3.75%, the nanocrystals exhibit excellent electrocatalytic activity in both experiments and theoretical calculations. Also, the sea-urchin-like PdPbAg NDs can serve as an efficient electrocatalyst for the electrochemical alcohol oxidation of methanol, ethylene glycol, and glycerol. This study reports a facile way of constructing monodisperse sea-urchin-like NDs and monodisperse NPs of unary metals and binary/ternary alloys, providing a novel strategy for constructing 3D anisotropic and high-efficiency electrocatalysts, and also offers a deep understanding of lattice engineering and electronic properties with promising applications.