Crossed PtCoCu Alloy Nanocrystals with High-Index Facets as Highly Active Catalyst for Methanol Oxidation Reaction

Nanocrystals with high-index facets are arousing growing attention in terms of rational design of efficient electrocatalysts. Herein, ternary PtCoCu alloys with distinct crossed and dendritic structure are prepared via one-pot approach simply by tuning the amount of serine. The electrocatalytic performances for methanol oxidation reaction by these PtCoCu alloys are examined. It turns out that the {hk0} high-index facets-covered surfaces endow the crossed PtCoCu alloy with 4.2-fold improvement of specific activity relative to commercial Pt/C and with superior stability. This work provides a facile and feasible route for synthesizing tri- or multimetallic alloys for electrocatalytic applications.