Synthesis and Characterization of Pt-Ag Alloy Nanocages with Enhanced Activity and Durability toward Oxygen Reduction

Engineering the elemental composition of metal nanocrystals offers an effective strategy for the development of catalysts or electrocatalysts with greatly enhanced activity. Herein, we report the synthesis of Pt-Ag alloy nanocages with an outer edge length of 18 nm and a wall thickness of about 3 nm. Such nanocages with a composition of Pt₁₉Ag₈₁ could be readily prepared in one step through the galvanic replacement reaction between Ag nanocubes and a Pt(II) precursor. After 10 000 cycles of potential cycling in the range of 0.60-1.0 V as in an accelerated durability test, the composition of the nanocages changed to Pt₅₆Ag₄₄, together with a specific activity of 1.23 mA cm^-2 toward oxygen reduction, which was 3.3 times that of a state-of-the-art commercial Pt/C catalyst (0.37 mA cm^-2) prior to durability testing. Density functional theory calculations attributed the increased activity to the stabilization of the transition state for breaking the O-O bond in molecular oxygen. Even after 30 000 cycles of potential cycling, the mass activity of the nanocages only dropped from 0.64 to 0.33 A mg^-1_Pt, which was still about two times that of the pristine Pt/C catalyst (0.19 A mg^-1_Pt).