Smart design of Pt-based nanomaterials is of interest due to their potential as electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR).  Specially, electrocatalytic activity can be optimized through engineering strain of multimetallic surfaces.  Particularly, core-shell nanoparticles (NPs) present a unique architecture to induce surface strain and achieve efficient catalysis.  Previous work has shown that intermetallic cores stabilize multimetallic surfaces to create more durable catalysts. Additionally, shape-controlled catalysts provide higher activity and selectivity. Thus, there is a need to develop strategies to synthesize Pt-based core-shell NPs with a high degree of shape control to correlate structural properties of NPs with their catalytic performance.   Here, seed-mediated co-reduction (SMCR) is shown to be a versatile route to shape-controlled multimetallic nanostructures with strained surfaces. Specifically, studies were undertaken to achieve core-shell PdCu-PtCu NPs with a cubic shape, where Pt and Cu precursors were simultaneously reduced to deposit alloy shells on intermetallic PdCu seeds.  The quality of the synthesized cubes relies on the selection of stabilizing and capping agent as well as the complexing agent.  Efforts are now directed toward the evaluation of catalytic performance of the synthesized NPs for use as electrocatalysts in ORR and manipulating the synthetic conditions to express different facets for catalysis.

Seed-mediated co-reduction as a route to shape-controlled PdCu-PtCu core-shell nanoparticles

2019 Fall National Meeting

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