Catalysis at surfaces and interfaces where there exists bi- or multi-component cooperation has been identified as crucial for many processes related to energy and environmental applications. Here we show such cooperation-enhanced catalysis can be synthetically controlled at nanoscale and singe-atom scale over well-defined nanocrystals. The first example is Metal phosphide -Pt (M=Fe, Co, Ni) core-shell nanocrystals within which desirable/undesirable interfaces between non-precious metal phosphide core and precious metal Pt shell are identified by density functional theory (DFT) calculations and are practically balanced by nanocrystal synthesis. The optimized core-shell nanocrystals exhibit favorable interfacial interaction at nanometer scale through properly coupled electronic and strain effects, leading to an enhanced electrocatalytic efficiency toward oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in acid. In second example, we take advantage of single-atom Fe, Co's synergy with various oxide support for electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The relevant theoretical calculation and structural characterization will be discussed.

Tuning cooperative electrocatalysis at nanocrystals surfaces and interfaces

256th National Meeting (2018)

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