Facet-Controlled PdP Nanosheets for Ethanol Electrooxidation
Ke Guo, Yang Meng, Ruonan Guo, Hongyou Guo, Shuqin Qiu, Dongping Fan, Dongdong Xu, Yafei Li
Abstract
Understanding the contribution of crystal facets to the adsorption/desorption behavior of catalytic reaction intermediates is crucial for the design of high-performance electrocatalysts. In this work, we designed a synthesis strategy for ultrathin PdP nanosheets enclosed by different low-index facets, for example, {100}, {110}, and {111}, and studied their performance for electrocatalytic ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR). The results showed that the mass activity of the PdP nanosheets enclosed by the {100} facet was 4.07 A/mg, which was 1.43, 2.56, and 5.58 times as high as that of the PdP {110}, PdP {111}, and commercial Pd/C, respectively. Additionally, the PdP {100} displayed the best stability and the lowest activation energy (Ea), which further proved that the atomic configuration on the crystallographic {100} facet was greatly beneficial for EOR. The universality of this synthesis strategy was shown by producing nanocrystals with various amounts of P doping and elemental compositions (e.g., {100}-exposed PdAgP, PdAuP, PdCuP, and PdPtP).