Mastering the surface strain of platinum catalysts for efficient electrocatalysis

Tianou He; Weicong Wang; Fenglei Shi; Xiaolong Yang; Xiang Li; Jianbo Wu; Yadong Yin; Mingshang Jin

doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03870-z

Mastering the surface strain of platinum catalysts for efficient electrocatalysis

Nature. 2021 Oct;598(7879):76-81. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03870-z. Epub 2021 Oct 6.

Authors

Tianou He^#^{1

2}, Weicong Wang^#^{1

2}, Fenglei Shi^#³, Xiaolong Yang⁴, Xiang Li⁵, Jianbo Wu^{6

7

8}, Yadong Yin⁹, Mingshang Jin^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
² Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
⁴ College of Physics and Center of Quantum Materials and Devices, Chongqing University, Chongqing, People's Republic of China.
⁵ School of Materials and Chemical Engineering, Xi'an Technological University, Xi'an, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China. [email protected].
⁷ Center of Hydrogen Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China. [email protected].
⁸ Materials Genome Initiative Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China. [email protected].
⁹ Department of Chemistry, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA. [email protected].
¹⁰ State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China. [email protected].
¹¹ Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China. [email protected].

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 34616058
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03870-z

Abstract

Platinum (Pt) has found wide use as an electrocatalyst for sustainable energy conversion systems^1-3. The activity of Pt is controlled by its electronic structure (typically, the d-band centre), which depends sensitively on lattice strain^4,5. This dependence can be exploited for catalyst design^4,6-8, and the use of core-shell structures and elastic substrates has resulted in strain-engineered Pt catalysts with drastically improved electrocatalytic performances^7,9-13. However, it is challenging to map in detail the strain-activity correlations in Pt-catalysed conversions, which can involve a number of distinct processes, and to identify the optimal strain modification for specific reactions. Here we show that when ultrathin Pt shells are deposited on palladium-based nanocubes, expansion and shrinkage of the nanocubes through phosphorization and dephosphorization induces strain in the Pt(100) lattice that can be adjusted from -5.1 per cent to 5.9 per cent. We use this strain control to tune the electrocatalytic activity of the Pt shells over a wide range, finding that the strain-activity correlation for the methanol oxidation reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction follows an M-shaped curve and a volcano-shaped curve, respectively. We anticipate that our approach can be used to screen out lattice strain that will optimize the performance of Pt catalysts-and potentially other metal catalysts-for a wide range of reactions.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't