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Self-supporting nanoporous gold-palladium overlayer bifunctional catalysts toward oxygen reduction and evolution reactions

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Abstract

The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are crucial processes for energy conversion/storage systems, such as fuel cells, metal–air batteries, and water splitting. However, both reactions are severely restricted by their sluggish kinetics, thus requiring highly active, cost-effective, and durable electrocatalysts. Herein, we develop novel bifunctional nanocatalysts through surface nanoengineering of dealloying-driven nanoporous gold (NPG). Pd overlayers were precisely deposited onto the NPG ligament surface by epitaxial layer-by-layer growth. More importantly, the obtained NPG-Pd overlayer nanocatalysts exhibit remarkably enhanced electrocatalytic activities toward both the ORR and OER in alkaline media, benchmarked against a stateof- the-art Pt/C catalyst. The improved electrocatalytic performance is rationalized by the unique three-dimensional nanoarchitecture of NPG, enhanced Pd utilization efficiency from precise control of the Pd overlayers, and change in electronic structure, as revealed by density functional theory calculations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Jinan, 336 West Road of Nan Xinzhuang, Jinan, 250022, China

    Yan Wang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Applications for Batteries of Zhejiang Province and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Wei Huang & Chuanhong Jin

  3. Key Laboratory for Liquid-Solid Structural Evolution and Processing of Materials (Ministry of Education), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jingshi Road 17923, Jinan, 250061, China

    Conghui Si, Jie Zhang, Xuejiao Yan & Zhonghua Zhang

  4. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, 391 Binshui Xidao, Xiqing District, Tianjin, 300384, China

    Yi Ding

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  1. Yan Wang
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  2. Wei Huang
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Correspondence to Zhonghua Zhang.

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These authors contributed equally to this work.

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12274_2016_1248_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Self-supporting nanoporous gold-palladium overlayer bifunctional catalysts toward oxygen reduction and evolution reactions

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Wang, Y., Huang, W., Si, C. et al. Self-supporting nanoporous gold-palladium overlayer bifunctional catalysts toward oxygen reduction and evolution reactions. Nano Res. 9, 3781–3794 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1248-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1248-x

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