Synthesis of Pd3Sn and PdCuSn Nanorods with L12 Phase for Highly Efficient Electrocatalytic Ethanol Oxidation

The crystal phase of nanomaterials is one of the key parameters determining their physicochemical properties and performance in various applications. However, it still remains a great challenge to synthesize nanomaterials with different crystal phases while maintaining the same composition, size, and morphology. Here, a facile, one-pot, wet-chemical method is reported to synthesize Pd3Sn nanorods with comparable size and morphology but different crystal phases, that is, an ordered intermetallic and a disordered alloy with L1(2) and face-centered cubic (fcc) phases, respectively. The crystal phase of the as-synthesized Pd3Sn nanorods is easily tuned by altering the types of tin precursors and solvents. Moreover, the approach can also be used to synthesize ternary PdCuSn nanorods with the L1(2) crystal phase. When used as electrocatalysts, the L1(2) Pd3Sn nanorods exhibit superior electrocatalytic performance toward the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) compared to their fcc counterpart. Impressively, compared to the L1(2) Pd3Sn nanorods, the ternary L1(2) PdCuSn nanorods exhibit more enhanced electrocatalytic performance toward the EOR, yielding a high mass current density up to 6.22 A mg(Pd)(-1), which is superior to the commercial Pd/C catalyst and among the best reported Pd-based EOR electrocatalysts.

Automated summary

The study presents a facile wet-chemical method to synthesize Pd3Sn nanorods with different crystal phases and demonstrates the ease of tuning the crystal phase by altering precursor types. Additionally, the method is shown to be applicable for synthesizing PdCuSn nanorods with the L1(2) crystal phase, exhibiting superior electrocatalytic performance.