Zhang Kewang, Song Tongxin, Wang Cheng, You Huaming, Zou Bin, Guo Siyu, Du Yukou, Li Shujin
College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, 199 Renai Road, Suzhou 215123, P. R. China.
Inorg Chem. 2021 May 17;60(10):7527-7535. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.1c00885. Epub 2021 Apr 28.
Photoelectrocatalytic nanomaterials are promising for direct alcohol fuel cells, but the construction of high-efficiency catalysts remains difficult. We herein successfully synthesized three-dimensional (3D) PdM nanosheet assemblies (PdM NSAs, M = Au, Ag, and Cu) through a seed-mediated growth method, which displayed a typical 3D nanoflower morphology assembled from many two-dimensional ultrathin nanosheets. Due to the open 3D structure and the synergistic and electronic effects between Pd and Ag, the optimized PdAg NSAs showed the highest mass activity (9378 mA mg) for the ethylene glycol oxidation reaction. More interestingly, when irradiated with visible light, the mass activity increased to 14 590 mA mg, 12.1 times higher than that of the commercial Pd/C (1205 mA mg). In addition, the as-obtained catalysts also showed better long-term durability than that of the commercial Pd/C under the condition of with or without visible-light illumination. This work highlights the utilization of light energy in designing excellent photoelectrocatalysts to promote the photoelectrocatalytic performance of anode catalysts for fuel cells.
光电催化纳米材料在直接醇类燃料电池方面具有广阔前景，但高效催化剂的构建仍然困难。我们在此通过种子介导生长法成功合成了三维（3D）PdM纳米片组装体（PdM NSAs，M = Au、Ag和Cu），其呈现出由许多二维超薄纳米片组装而成的典型3D纳米花形态。由于开放的3D结构以及Pd和Ag之间的协同和电子效应，优化后的PdAg NSAs对乙二醇氧化反应表现出最高的质量活性（9378 mA mg）。更有趣的是，当用可见光照射时，质量活性增加到14590 mA mg，比商业Pd/C（1205 mA mg）高12.1倍。此外，所制备的催化剂在有或无可见光照射的条件下，还表现出比商业Pd/C更好的长期耐久性。这项工作突出了在设计优异的光电催化剂时利用光能以提升燃料电池阳极催化剂的光电催化性能。
