Atomically ordered non-precious Co<sub>3</sub>Ta intermetallic nanoparticles as high-performance catalysts for hydrazine electrooxidation.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31586070.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-12509-7 and PMC identifier 6778194.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Nano-ordered intermetallic compounds have generated great interest in fuel cell applications. However, the synthesis of non-preciousearly transition metal intermetallic nanoparticles remains a formidable challenge owing to the extremely oxyphilic nature and very negative reduction potentials. Here, we have successfully synthesized non-precious Co<sub>3</sub>Ta intermetallic nanoparticles, with uniform size of 5 nm. Atomic structural characterizations and X-ray absorption fine structure measurements confirm the atomically ordered intermetallic structure. As electrocatalysts for the hydrazine oxidation reaction, Co<sub>3</sub>Ta nanoparticles exhibit an onset potential of -0.086 V (vs. reversible hydrogen electrode) and two times higher specific activity relative to commercial Pt/C (+0.06 V), demonstrating the top-level performance among reported electrocatalysts. The Co-Ta bridge sites are identified as the location of the most active sites thanks to density functional theory calculations. The activation energy of the hydrogen dissociation step decreases significantly upon N<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub> adsorption on the Co-Ta bridge active sites, contributing to the significantly enhanced activity.