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Facile synthesis of Pt–Ag octahedral and tetrahedral nanocrystals with enhanced activity and durability toward methanol oxidation

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Abstract

Engineering the surface structure, together with the incorporation of a second metal, is an effective strategy for boosting the catalytic activities of Pt-based catalysts toward various reactions. Here, we report a facile approach to the synthesis of Pt–Ag octahedral and tetrahedral nanocrystals covered by concave surfaces. The presence of the Ag(I) precursor not only facilitated the reduction of the Pt(IV) precursor but also led to the formation of concaved facets on the Pt–Ag nanocrystals. Besides, poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) was demonstrated to serve as a co-reductant, in addition to its role as a colloidal stabilizer. Using PVP with different molecular weights, we were able to tune the size of the Pt–Ag nanocrystals in the range of 9–25 and 14–32 nm for the octahedral and tetrahedral shapes, respectively. The Pt–Ag nanocrystals exhibited 4.6- and 2.0-fold enhancements in terms of specific and mass activities, respectively, toward methanol oxidation, when benchmarked against the commercial Pt/C catalyst. After 1000 cycles of the accelerated tests, the specific and mass activities of the Pt–Ag nanocrystals were still 3.6 and 1.6 times as high as those of the original commercial Pt/C.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported in part by a grant from the NSF (DMR 1506018), and start-up funds from the Georgia Institute of Technology. High-resolution imaging was performed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility (M.C.). Z.D.H. gratefully acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. DGE-1650044 and the Georgia Tech-ORNL Fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, 30332, USA

    Ming Zhao, Zachary D. Hood & Younan Xia

  2. The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, 30332, USA

    Xuan Yang & Younan Xia

  3. Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 37831, USA

    Zachary D. Hood & Miaofang Chi

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  1. Ming Zhao
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  2. Xuan Yang
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  4. Miaofang Chi
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  5. Younan Xia
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Correspondence to Younan Xia.

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Zhao, M., Yang, X., Hood, Z.D. et al. Facile synthesis of Pt–Ag octahedral and tetrahedral nanocrystals with enhanced activity and durability toward methanol oxidation. Journal of Materials Research 33, 3891–3897 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2018.346

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2018.346

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