Iron- and Cobalt-Doped Palladium/Carbon Nanoparticles as Catalysts for Formic Acid Oxidation

Doping heterogeneous atoms is an effective way of improving the catalytic performance of Pd nanocatalysts. This letter reports a facile way of enhancing the catalytic efficiency of Pd atoms by doping Fe/Co atoms. The optimum compositions of PdFe and PdCo nanoparticles can be synthesized by precisely controlling the doping amount of Fe/Co atoms. The PdFe0.64/C and PdCo0.70/C nanoparticles show enhanced mass activity (1.99 and 1.77 mA mu g(Pd)(-1)) and specific activity (4.36 and 4.15 mA cm(-2)) in the formic acid oxidation reaction, which are 8.3/7.4 and 3.6/3.4 times higher than that of the undoped Pd/C nanoparticle.

Automated summary

This study reports a method of enhancing the catalytic efficiency of Pd atoms by doping with Fe/Co atoms. The optimized compositions of PdFe and PdCo nanoparticles can be synthesized by controlling the doping amount of Fe/Co atoms. These nanoparticles exhibit significantly improved catalytic activity in the formic acid oxidation reaction.