Interface modulation of twinned PtFe nanoplates branched 3D architecture for oxygen reduction catalysis

Mingchuan Luo; Yingnan Qin; Menggang Li; Yingjun Sun; Chunji Li; Yingjie Li; Yong Yang; Fan Lv; Dong Wu; Peng Zhou; Shaojun Guo

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2019.10.012

Interface modulation of twinned PtFe nanoplates branched 3D architecture for oxygen reduction catalysis

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2020 Jan 30;65(2):97-104. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2019.10.012. Epub 2019 Oct 17.

Authors

Mingchuan Luo¹, Yingnan Qin², Menggang Li³, Yingjun Sun², Chunji Li¹, Yingjie Li¹, Yong Yang¹, Fan Lv¹, Dong Wu¹, Peng Zhou¹, Shaojun Guo⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science & Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
² College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266042, China.
³ MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China.
⁴ Department of Materials Science & Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China; BIC-ESAT, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China; Department of Energy and Resources Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. Electronic address: guosj@pku.edu.cn.

PMID: 36659084
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2019.10.012

Abstract

Highly-branched dendritic Pt-based nanocrystals possess great potential in catalyzing the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), but encounter performance ceiling due to their poor thermal and electrochemical stability. Here, we present a novel PtFe nanodendrites (NDs) branched with two-dimensional (2D) twinned nanoplates rather than conventional 1D nanowires, which breaks the ORR performance ceiling of dendritic catalysts by inducing the unique Pt-skin configuration via rationally thermal treatment. By further hybridizing the Pt-skin PtFe NDs/C with amino-functionalized ionic liquids (ILs), we achieve an unprecedented mass activity of 3.15 A/mg_Pt at 0.9 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) in the PtFe-based ORR electrocatalytic system. They also show excellent electrocatalytic durability for ORR with negligible activity decay and no apparent structural change after 20,000 cycles, in sharp contrast to the nanowires branched PtFe NDs counterpart. The remarkable catalytic performance is attributed to a combination of several structural features, including 2D morphology, twin boundary, partially ordered phase and strong coordination with amino group. This work highlights the significance of stabilizing electrocatalytic structures via morphology tuning, which thus enables further surface and interface modification for performance breakthrough in ORR electrocatalysis.

Keywords: Dendrities; Ionic liquid; Nanoplates; Oxygen reduction reaction; PtFe alloy.