Highly Active Bimetallic PdPt and CoPt Nanocrystals for Methanol Electro-oxidation

A facile and one-pot method for the synthesis of Pt, Pd, and their alloy nanocrystals along with their exciting electrocatalytic activities toward methanol oxidation have been reported. Unique structures like truncated octahedrons of Pd, Pt, and their alloys like CoPt and PdPt have been synthesized in presence of a reducing solvent like N-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) and stabilizer like polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP). Among these nanocrystals, Pd16Pt84 and Co5Pt95 show tremendous improvement in the electro-oxidation of methanol in acidic media with mass activities of 1790 and 1417 mA/mg(Pt), respectively (with lower onset potential compared to Pt alone), which is believed to be much higher compared to that of previous reports and state-of-art Pt/C and RuPt/C catalysts, indicating a better alloy formation and stable particle-support interactions.