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Updated: Apr 10, 2026
Synthesis of Platinum-nickel Nanowires and Optimization for Oxygen Reduction Performance
Published on: April 27, 2018
ELECTROCHEMISTRY. High-performance transition metal-doped Pt₃Ni octahedra for oxygen reduction reaction
Xiaoqing Huang1, Zipeng Zhao1, Liang Cao2
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Abstract:
Bimetallic platinum-nickel (Pt-Ni) nanostructures represent an emerging class of electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in fuel cells, but practical applications have been limited by catalytic activity and durability. We surface-doped Pt3Ni octahedra supported on carbon with transition metals, termed M-Pt3Ni/C, where M is vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, molybdenum (Mo), tungsten, or rhenium. The Mo-Pt3Ni/C showed the best ORR performance, with a specific activity of 10.3 mA/cm(2) and mass activity of 6.98 A/mg(Pt), which are 81- and 73-fold enhancements compared with the commercial Pt/C catalyst (0.127 mA/cm(2) and 0.096 A/mg(Pt)). Theoretical calculations suggest that Mo prefers subsurface positions near the particle edges in vacuum and surface vertex/edge sites in oxidizing conditions, where it enhances both the performance and the stability of the Pt3Ni catalyst.
