Hot Injection Assisted Electronically Modulated Twin and Grain Boundary Rich Sub-2 nm Pt₃Co Alloy Resistant to...

Modulation of the electronic d-band center, structural defects (line defects), and particle size of Pt₃Co alloy electrocatalyst have huge significance in elevating its electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction activity. Deviating from traditional high-temperature strategies, the current work focuses on ripening these benefits by implying a simple economically viable hot-injection-assisted modified polyol process. A conclusive control over decrementing particle size starting from 2.7 to 1.3 nm, an increasing degree of strain (twin boundary), and shifting of the d-band center away from the Fermi level are obtained via varying the temperature to which the solution is injected. The catalyst prepared via the injection at 200 °C (Pt₃Co_{(1.3 t,g-b)}/fVC-200) has delivered an electrochemical surface area of 84 m² $$ with the onset and half-wave potentials of 0.980 and 0.858 V, respectively, versus RHE and a limiting current of -6.0 mA cm^-2 with stability till 20k cycles. In the high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell Pt₃Co_{(1.3 t,g-b)}/fVC-200-based cell has outperformed Pt/C rendering 600 mWcm^-2 under H₂-Air compared to 529 mWcm^-2 of Pt/C with 20% lower Pt loading and double the stability due to enhanced resistance toward phosphoric acid for accelerated voltage cycling. A similar enhancement is seen while employing the catalyst for low-temperature fuel cells.