title: A nanoporous PdCo alloy as a highly active electrocatalyst for the oxygen-reduction reaction and formic acid electrooxidation.
abstract: A nanoporous (NP) PdCo alloy with uniform structure size and controllable bimetallic ratio was fabricated simply by one-step mild dealloying of a PdCoAl precursor alloy. The as-made alloy consists of a nanoscaled bicontinuous network skeleton with interconnected hollow channels that extend in all three dimensions. With a narrow ligament size distribution around 5 nm, the NP PdCo alloy exhibits much higher electrocatalytic activity towards the oxygen-reduction reaction (ORR) with enhanced specific and mass activities relative to NP Pd and commercial Pt/C catalysts. A long-term stability test demonstrated that NP PdCo has comparable catalytic durability with less loss of ORR activity and electrochemical surface area than Pt/C. The NP PdCo alloy also shows dramatically enhanced catalytic activity towards formic acid electrooxidation relative to NP Pd and Pd/C catalysts. The as-made NP PdCo holds great application potential as a promising cathode as well as an anode electrocatalyst in fuel cells with the advantages of superior catalytic performance and easy preparation.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Chemical Sensing & Analysis in Universities of Shandong, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022 (China), Fax: (+86) 531-82765969. chm_xucx@ujn.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Caixia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Yunqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Huan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Haoran
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Geng
keywords: alloys; electrocatalysis; nanostructures; oxygen-reduction reaction; palladium