Chemistry

Single-atom catalyst for high-performance methanol oxidation

Z. Zhang, J. Liu, et al.

Discover the groundbreaking research conducted by Zhiqi Zhang and colleagues, showcasing a novel single-atom catalyst that dramatically enhances electrocatalytic activity for methanol oxidation. The innovative Pt1/RuO2 catalyst outperforms traditional Pt/C by 15.3 times, demonstrating remarkable catalytic stability and CO poisoning tolerance. A significant step forward for electrochemical alcohol oxidation!

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Abstract

Single-atom catalysts have been widely investigated for several electrocatalytic reactions except electrochemical alcohol oxidation. Herein, we synthesize atomically dispersed platinum on ruthenium oxide (Pt1/RuO2) using a simple impregnation-adsorption method. We find that Pt1/RuO2 has good electrocatalytic activity towards methanol oxidation in an alkaline media with a mass activity that is 15.3-times higher than that of commercial Pt/C (6766 vs. 441 mA mgPt−1). In contrast, single atom Pt on carbon black is inert. Further, the mass activity of Pt1/RuO2 is superior to that of most Pt-based catalysts previously developed. Moreover, Pt1/RuO2 has a high tolerance towards CO poisoning, resulting in excellent catalytic stability. Ab initio simulations and experiments reveal that the presence of Pt-O3 (3-fold coordinatively bonded O)-Rucus (coordinatively unsaturated Ru) bonds with the undercoordinated bridging O in Pt1/RuO2 favors the electrochemical dehydrogenation of methanol with lower energy barriers and onset potential than those encountered for Pt-C and Pt-Ru.

Publisher

Nature Communications

Published On

Sep 02, 2021

Authors

Zhiqi Zhang, Jiapeng Liu, Jian Wang, Qi Wang, Yuhao Wang, Kai Wang, Zheng Wang, Meng Guo, Zhenghua Tang, Jongwoo Lim, Tianshou Zhao, Francesco Ciucci

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