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Updated: May 7, 2026

Synthesis of Platinum-nickel Nanowires and Optimization for Oxygen Reduction Performance
Published on: April 27, 2018
Design of Pt-shell nanoparticles with alloy cores for the oxygen reduction reaction
Liang Zhang1, Ravikumar Iyyamperumal, David F Yancey
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, ‡Texas Materials Institute, and §Institute for Computational and Engineering Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin , 105 E. 24th Street, Stop A5300, Austin, Texas 78712-1224, United States.
Abstract:
We report that the oxygen binding energy of alloy-core@Pt nanoparticles can be linearly tuned by varying the alloy-core composition. Using this tuning mechanism, we are able to predict optimal compositions for different alloy-core@Pt nanoparticles. Subsequent electrochemical measurements of ORR activities of AuPd@Pt dendrimer-encapsulated nanoparticles (DENs) are in a good agreement with the theoretical prediction that the peak of activity is achieved for a 28% Au/72% Pd alloy core supporting a Pt shell. Importantly, these findings represent an unusual case of first-principles theory leading to nearly perfect agreement with experimental results.

