Phosphorus-doping-tuned PtNi concave nanocubes with high-index facets for enhanced methanol oxidation reaction

Surface engineering has been found to be an efficient strategy to boost the catalytic performance of noble-metal-based nanocatalysts. In this work, a small amount of P was doped to the surface of PtNi concave cube (P-PtNi CNC). Interestingly, the P-PtNi CNC nanocatalyst shows an enhanced methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) performance with achieving 8.19 times of specific activity than that of comercial Pt/C. The electrochemical in situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) results reveal that the surface P doping promotes the adsorption energy of OH, enhancing the resistance against CO poisoning. Therefore, the intermediate adsorbed CO (COads) reacted with adsorbed OH (OHads) through the Langmuir-Hinshelwood (LH) mechanism to generate CO2 and release surface active sites for further adsorption. This work provides a promising strategy via the incorporation of non-metallic elements into the PtNi alloys bounded with high-index facets (HIFs) as efficient fuel cell catalysts.

Automated summary

In this work, researchers demonstrated that doping a small amount of phosphorus (P) onto the surface of PtNi concave cube can significantly enhance the catalytic performance of methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). The P-PtNi CNC nanocatalyst achieved 8.19 times higher specific activity compared to commercial Pt/C, which can be attributed to the increased adsorption energy of OH and enhanced resistance against CO poisoning.