Generalized chalcogenation for boosting the electrocatalytic alcohol oxidation of Pd nanoflowers

Abstract

The electrocatalytic alcohol oxidation reaction (AOR) is a crucial process in fuel cells; however, conventional electrocatalysts underperform owing to their limited electrocatalytic activity and poor stability, and achieving the dissociation of C–C bonds in alcohols is one of the biggest challenges in improving AOR efficiency. Herein, we propose a generalized chalcogenation strategy for significantly promoting the electrocatalytic AOR performance of Pd nanoflowers. Surprisingly, the mass activity and specific activity of the ethylene glycol oxidation reaction (EGOR) based on the optimized Pd₈Te₁ nanocatalyst remarkably enhanced by 1.72 and 1.25 times, respectively. In addition to the EGOR, the as-obtained PdTe electrocatalysts were demonstrated to be highly active toward the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) and glycerol oxidation reaction (GOR). Detailed investigations reveal that their superior electrocatalytic activity and durability are attributed to the effect of chalcogenation, which could induce modification of the electronic structure of Pd to not only boost electron transfer but also significantly decrease the activation energy. More significantly, the chalcogenation strategy is general and thus can be extended to construct other efficient AOR electrocatalysts with enhanced performance. Considering the high electrocatalytic properties and facile synthesis method, we suggest that this generalized chalcogenation strategy will open a new avenue for the production of advanced electrocatalysts and boost the development of fuel cells.