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Palladium-ytterbium bimetallic electrocatalysts supported on carbon black, titanium suboxide, or poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride)-functionalized titanium suboxide towards methanol oxidation in alkaline media

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Abstract

Palladium-ytterbium (Pd-Yb) bimetallic catalysts with different Pd/Yb ratios supported on carbon black (20%Pd-x%Yb/C, x = 0, 1, 5, 10, and 15) were prepared by a sodium borohydride reduction method. The 20%Pd-5%Yb/C catalyst exhibited the best electrocatalytic activity towards methanol oxidation in alkaline media. The improved electrocatalytic activity and stability of 20%Pd-5%Yb/C can be explained by a bi-functional mechanism. In addition, the higher content of metallic palladium caused by the addition of ytterbium also contributes to the better catalytic activity of the 20%Pd+5%Yb/C catalyst. In view of the good electrocatalytic performance of 20%Pd+5%Yb/C, the 20%Pd+5%Yb catalyst supported on titanium suboxide (20%Pd+5%Yb/Ti4O7) was prepared. However, the Pd-Yb particles supported on Ti4O7 were seriously agglomerated. To improve the dispersion status of alloy particles, the Ti4O7 was functionalized with poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (Ti4O7-PDDA). Electrochemical characterizations showed that no matter Ti4O7 or Ti4O7-PDDA as supports, Pd-Yb catalysts exhibited better catalytic activity than 20%Pd-5%Yb/C. The improvement mainly results from the further increase of metallic Pd due to the presence of Ti4O7.

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Funding

The authors are grateful for the financial support by the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. QYZDJ-SSW-JSC021), the Chinese National Programs for High Technology Research and Development (2014AA06A513), as well as by the 973 Program (Grant No. 2015CB251303).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China

    Yafeng Gong & Jiehua Liu

  2. National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner Production Technology, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Yafeng Gong, Yi Wang & Tao Qi

  3. The Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100032, China

    Yinghua He

  4. Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Petrochemical Engineering, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, 730050, China

    An Li

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  1. Yafeng Gong
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  2. Yinghua He
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  3. An Li
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  4. Yi Wang
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  5. Jiehua Liu
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  6. Tao Qi
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Correspondence to Yi Wang or Jiehua Liu.

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Gong, Y., He, Y., Li, A. et al. Palladium-ytterbium bimetallic electrocatalysts supported on carbon black, titanium suboxide, or poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride)-functionalized titanium suboxide towards methanol oxidation in alkaline media. Ionics 24, 3085–3094 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-018-2506-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-018-2506-6

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