CaltechAUTHORS
Published December 11, 2020 | Version Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

Compressed Intermetallic PdCu for Enhanced Electrocatalysis

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon California NanoSystems Institute
  • 2. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 3. ROR icon Soochow University
  • 4. ROR icon University of California, Irvine
  • 5. ROR icon Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Abstract

Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a key reaction in hydrogen production through water electrolysis. Platinum (Pt) is the best-known element for HER catalysis. Due to the scarcity of Pt, the development of non-Pt nanocatalysts is desired to achieve broad scale implementations. Here we demonstrate that the PdCu nanostructure containing an intermetallic B2 phase (PdCu-B2) shows a smaller Tafel slope, higher exchange current density, and lower overpotential for HER compared to commercial Pt/C in acidic conditions. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrate that the improved HER performance in acidic conditions can be attributed to the decrease in the hydrogen binding energy (HBE) on the compressed intermetallic PdCu-B2, shifting the HBE to a more optimal position even compared to Pt/C. In addition, PdCu-B2 exhibits the highest mass activity toward the formic acid oxidation reaction, making it a good anode catalyst candidate for formic-acid-based fuel cells.

Additional Information

© 2020 American Chemical Society. Received: September 14, 2020; Accepted: October 26, 2020; Published: November 3, 2020. Y.H., W.A.G., Z.Z., and M.F.E. acknowledge the support from Office of Naval Research (N000141812155). T.C. was supported by the Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science & Technology, the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD) and the 111 Project. W.A.G. was supported by the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, a DOE Energy Innovation Hub, supported through the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Award No. DE-SC0004993. This work used the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) which is supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. ACI-1548562. The work at UC Irvine was supported by the National Science Foundation with Grants CBET 1159240, DMR1420620, and DMR-1506535. TEM work on JEM Grand ARM was conducted using the facilities in the Irvine Materials Research Institute (IMRI) at the University of California Irvine. The authors declare no competing financial interest.

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
106405
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20201103-135137512

Funding

Office of Naval Research (ONR)
N000141812155
Suzhou Nano Science and Technology
Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions
111 Project of China
Department of Energy (DOE)
DE-SC0004993
NSF
ACI-1548562
NSF
CBET-1159240
NSF
DMR-1420620
NSF
DMR-1506535

Dates

Created
2020-11-04
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-16
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
JCAP
Other Numbering System Name
WAG
Other Numbering System Identifier
1396