Synthesis of well-dispersed Pt-Pd nanoparticles stabilized by silsesquioxanes with enhanced catalytic activity for formic acid electrooxidation

The preparation of well-dispersed nanoparticles (NPs) has been one of the challenges in the development of nanoscale processing. Here, we firstly prepared well-dispersed Pt-Pd NPs (average particle diameter 6.5 nm) by using octa-maleamic acid silsesquioxanes as the stabilizing agent with hydrothermal method and determined the best OM-POSS/metal precursors molar ratio (1:2). These well-dispersed Pt-Pd NPs exhibited enhanced electrocatalytic performance, stability and tolerance to CO poisoning in formic acid oxidation. Their current density of the first oxidation peak in the CV curve recorded in 0.5 M H2SO4 + 0.5 M HCOOH is 4.3 and 8.6 times higher than those of Pt NPs (0.24 A mg(-1)) and commercial Pt/C (0.08 A mg(-1)) catalysts, as well as the ratio of the two oxidation peaks 4.8 and 10 times higher, respectively.