Highly Active Hollow RhCu Nanoboxes toward Ethylene Glycol Electrooxidation

High ‐quality porous RhCu nanoboxes are synthesized by facile galvanic replacement reaction and sodium borohydride reduction. Benefiting from hierarchical pore structure, RhCu nanoboxes display excellent electrocatalytic performance and stability than commercial Rh nanocrystal toward the ethylene glyco l oxidation reaction (EGOR) in alkaline medium, which provides meaningful reference for developing highly effective electrocatalysts for the EGOR, revealing a highly promising robust anodic electrocatalysts in ADMFCs. AbstractThe efficient electrocatalysts toward the ethylene glycol oxidation reaction (EGOR) are highly desirable for direct ethylene glycol fuel cells because of the sluggish kinetics of anodic EGOR. Herein, porous RhCu nanoboxes are successfully prepared through facile galvanic replacement reaction and succedent sodium borohydride reduction strategy. Benefiting from hierarchical pore structure, RhCu nanoboxes display excellent electrocatalytic performance toward the EGOR in alkaline medium with a mass activity of 775.1 A gRh−1, which is 2.8 times as large as that of commercial Rh nanocrystals. Moreover, the long ‐term stability of RhCu nanoboxes is better than that of commercial Rh nanocrystals. Furthermore, the theoretical calculations demonstrate that RhCu nanoboxes possess lower adsorption energy of CO and lower reaction barrier (0.27 eV) for the COads oxidation with aid of the adsorbed OHads species, resulting in the outstanding electrocatalytic perfo...

Source: Small - February 16, 2021 Category: Nanotechnology Authors: Bin Qiao, Ting Yang, Shufeng Shi, Nan Jia, Yu Chen, Xinbing Chen, Zhongwei An, Pei Chen Tags: Full Paper Source Type: research