Nanoflower-like PdCuP catalysts for enhancing ethanol electrooxidation

Abstract

Direct ethanol fuel cells with the advantages of high safety, portability and energy conversion efficiency draw high attention and have great prospects for the future. However, their commercial application was limited by the low catalytic activity and anti-poisoning of the anodic catalyst. In this work, nanoflower-like PdCuP catalysts (PdCuP NFs) assembled by nanosheets was successfully prepared by wet chemical method, where W(CO)₆ and CH₃COOH were used as structure-oriented agents. Towards to ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR), the highest peak current density of as-prepared PdCuP NFs is 5157.1 $\text{mA}{\text{mg}}_{\text{Pd}}^{-1}$, which is 6.0 times of Pd/C(JM) (866.7 $\text{mA}{\text{mg}}_{\text{Pd}}^{-1}$). The residual current density value after 5000 s stability test is still 114.8 $\text{mA}{\text{mg}}_{\text{Pd}}^{-1}$, which is 5.9 times of Pd/C(JM) (19.5 $\text{mA}{\text{mg}}_{\text{Pd}}^{-1}$). The results showed that the nonmetal P doping was conducive to adjust the absorb energy of OH_ads and further facilitate the oxidation of CO_ads.