Monodispersed bimetallic platinum-copper alloy nanospheres as efficient catalysts for ethylene glycol electrooxidation

Chunyan Chen ^a , Liujun Jin ^a , Hongyuan Shang ^a , Tongxin Song ^a , Fei Gao ^a , Yangping Zhang ^a , Caiqin Wang ^{b, *}（王彩琴） , Cheng Wang ^a , Yukou Du ^{a, *}（杜玉扣）

^a College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, PR China

^b College of Science & Institute of Materials Physics and Chemistry, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, PR China

Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 551 (2019) 81--88

Designing and fabricating highly active and efficient catalysts are of vital importance for the practical applications of direct ethylene glycol fuel cells (DEGFCs). In this study, we employ a feasible one-pot synthetic method to construct highly monodispersed PtCu nanospheres (NSs) as high-efficiency anode electrocatalysts for DEGFCs. Interestingly, the optimized carbon supported Pt₁Cu₁NSs can display the highest mass activity of 2146.9 mA mg⁻¹ in 1 M KOH + 1 M EG solution under the scan rate of 50 mV s⁻¹, which is 1.9 times higher than that of commercial Pt/C catalysts. This is ascribed to the favorable electronic effect between Pt and Cu, which is beneficial for ethylene glycol oxidation reaction (EGOR) in fuel cells. Meanwhile, such monodispersed Pt₁Cu₁ NSs can also exhibit excellent durability, where the Pt₁Cu₁ catalyst retains 62.6% of the initial value after the cyclic voltammetry of 500 cycles. This work not only provides a significant approach for designing catalysts for fuel cells, but also constructs a novel class of active and stable electrocatalysts for EGOR.

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