Efficient electrocatalytic formic acid oxidation over PdAu-manganese oxide/carbon

Developing high efficient Palladium-metal-based electrocatalysts is of great significance for formic acid oxidation (FAO) reaction. Here, we experimentally synthesize PdAu alloy composited with MnOx electrocatalyst (PdAu-MnOx/C) and illustrate its remarkable FAO performance. By virtue of theory studies, we find that Pd-Au bridges have superior adsorption ability towards HCOO* and oxygen vacancies in MnOx make HCOO* formation from HCOOH easier, synergistically lead to the outstanding FAO performance with specific activity and mass activity of 19.0 mA cm-2 and 4539 mA mg-1 Pd+Au respectively, which are 2.6 times and 3.5 times higher than commercial Pd/C. This work shed some light toward development of high-performance Pd-based electrocatalysts for FAO. (c) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This work synthesized PdAu-MnOx/C electrocatalyst with outstanding formic acid oxidation performance, providing insight for the development of high-performance Pd-based electrocatalysts.