Au nanowires with high aspect ratio and atomic shell of Pt-Ru alloy for enhanced methanol oxidation reaction

Toward Developing Superior Cu-Based Metal-Organic Framework-Derived Materials for Electrocatalytic Oxidation of Ethanol

This project addresses the urgent need for efficient and cost-effective development of electrocatalysts for the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR). This reaction offers promising renewable energy solutions but faces challenges due to the slow EOR kinetics, typically requiring costly noble metal catalysts. To overcome these limitations, this study focuses on developing CuZn-based EOR catalysts derived from metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), focusing on understanding the structure-performance relationship between pristine MOF-based electrocatalysts and their pyrolyzed counterparts. Herein, bimetallic MOF materials with varying Cu/Zn ratios were synthesized, followed by pyrolysis to produce carbonized counterparts while preserving the fundamental structure but with altered physicochemical properties. Comparative EOR studies revealed the superior performance of pyrolyzed MOFs, demonstrating that optimized Zn-loading is crucial over Cu-based framework for catalyst performance and durability. Overall, this work highlights the potential of MOF-derived Cu-based catalysts for renewable energy applications and provides insights into optimizing their performance through controlled synthesis and post-treatment strategies.

Surface unsaturated WOx activating PtNi alloy nanowires for oxygen reduction reaction

PtNi alloy nanoparticles display promising catalytic activity for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), while the Ostwald ripening of particles and the dissolution/migration of surface atoms greatly affect its stability thus restricting the application. Herein, the WO_x-surface modified PtNi alloy nanowires (WO_x-PtNi NWs) exhibiting enhanced ORR catalytic property is reported, which has high aspect ratio with the diameter of only 2 ∼ 3 nm. It is found that the WO_x-PtNi NWs shows a volcano relationship between the ORR activity and the content of WO_x. The WO_x-(0.25)-PtNi NWs has the best performance among all the synthesized catalysts. Its mass activity (0.85 A mg^-1_Pt) is reduced by only 23.89% after 30k cycles durability test, which is much more stable than that of PtNi NWs (0.33 A mg^-1_Pt, 45.94%) and Pt/C (0.14 A mg^-1_Pt, 57.79%). Hence this work achieves an effective regulation of the ORR activity for PtNi alloy NWs by the synergistic effect of WO_x on Pt.