Hexagonal PtBi Intermetallic Inlaid with Sub‐Monolayer Pb Oxyhydroxide Boosts Methanol Oxidation
Wen Chen, Shuiping Luo, Mingzi Sun, Min Tang, Xiaokun Fan, Yu Cheng, Xiaoyu Wu, Yujia Liao, Bolong Huang, Zewei Quan
Abstract
Abstract Engineering multicomponent nanocatalysts is effective to improve electrocatalysis in many applications, yet it remains a challenge in constructing well‐defined multimetallic active sites at the atomic level. Herein, the surface inlay of sub‐monolayer Pb oxyhydroxide onto hexagonal PtBi intermetallic nanoplates with intrinsically isolated Pt atoms to boost the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) is reported. The well‐defined [email protected]%Pb nanocatalyst exhibits 4.0 and 7.4 times higher mass activity than PtBi nanoplates and commercial Pt/C catalyst toward MOR in the alkaline electrolyte at 30 °C. Meanwhile, it also achieves a record‐high mass activity of 51.07 A mg –1 Pt at direct methanol fuel cells operation temperature of 60 °C. DFT calculations reveal that the introduction of Pb oxyhydroxide on the surface not only promotes the electron transfer efficiency but also suppresses the CO poisoning effect, and the efficient p‐d coupling optimizes the electroactivity of [email protected]%Pb nanoplates toward the MOR process with low reaction barriers. This work offers a nanoengineering strategy to effectively construct and modulate multimetallic nanocatalysts to improve the electroactivity toward the MOR in future research.