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Conversion of confined metal@ZIF-8 structures to intermetallic nanoparticles supported on nitrogen-doped carbon for electrocatalysis

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Abstract

We report a facile strategy to synthesize intermetallic nanoparticle (iNP) electrocatalysts via one-pot pyrolysis of a zeolitic imidazolate framework, ZIF-8, encapsulating precious metal nanoparticles (NPs). ZIF-8 serves not only as precursor for N-doped carbon (NC), but also as Zn source for the formation of intermetallic or alloy NPs with the encapsulated metals. The resulting sub-4 nm PtZn iNPs embedded in NC exhibit high sintering resistance up to 1,000 °C. Importantly, the present methodology allows fine-tuning of both composition (e.g., PdZn and RhZn iNPs, as well as AuZn and RuZn alloy NPs) and size (2.4, 3.7, and 5.4 nm PtZn) of the as-formed bimetallic NPs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a metal-organic framework (MOF) with multiple functionalities, such as secondary metal source, carbon precursor, and size-regulating reagent, which promote the formation of iNPs. This work opens a new avenue for the synthesis of highly uniform and stable iNPs.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment is made to the donors of the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund for support of this research. We thank Gordon J. Miller for the use of the X-ray diffractometer. We also thank Dapeng Jing at the Materials Analysis and Research Laboratory (MARL) of Iowa State University for the assistance on XPS measurement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA

    Zhiyuan Qi, Yuchen Pei, Tian Wei Goh, Zhaoyi Wang, Xinle Li, Mary Lowe, Raghu V. Maligal-Ganesh & Wenyu Huang

  2. Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA

    Zhiyuan Qi, Yuchen Pei, Tian Wei Goh, Xinle Li, Raghu V. Maligal-Ganesh & Wenyu Huang

  3. Department of Chemistry, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Zhaoyi Wang

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  1. Zhiyuan Qi
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Conversion of confined metal@ZIF-8 structures to intermetallic nanoparticles supported on nitrogen-doped carbon for electrocatalysis

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Qi, Z., Pei, Y., Goh, T.W. et al. Conversion of confined metal@ZIF-8 structures to intermetallic nanoparticles supported on nitrogen-doped carbon for electrocatalysis. Nano Res. 11, 3469–3479 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2016-x

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