Synergism of Multicomponent Catalysis: One-Dimensional Pt-Rh-Pd Nanochain Catalysts for Efficient Methanol Oxidation.

Designing Pt-based alloy catalysts with multicomponent composition and a controllable structure is important to improve the utilization efficiency of precious metals and catalytic activity, but it still face a lot of challenges for simple preparation. Herein, we used insulin amyloid fibrils as templates and their own one-dimensional spiral structure to synthesize Pt-Rh-Pd ternary alloy nanochains under mild conditions. The prepared Pt-Rh-Pd alloy nanochains (NCs) have uniform diameter, and the particle size is only 2 nm. This ultrafine structure increases the specific surface area of the catalyst to a certain extent, and the synergistic effect of the three metals improves the catalytic performance. Compared with commercial Pt/C and binary Pt-Rh NCs, the as-presented Pt-Rh-Pd NCs show better methanol oxidation activity ability and stability against CO poisoning. The peak current density of front sweep is 1.48 mA cm, which is 1.7 times higher than that of commercial Pt/C (0.89 mA cm) and 1.4 times higher than that of the Pt-Rh NCs (1.07 mA cm), indicating great application potential as high-performance electrocatalysts in fuel cells.