Ultrafine jagged platinum nanowires enable ultrahigh mass activity for the oxygen reduction reaction

Mufan Li, Zipeng Zhao, Tao Cheng, Alessandro Fortunelli, Chih Yen Chen, Rong Yu, Qinghua Zhang, Lin Gu, Boris V. Merinov, Zhaoyang Lin, Enbo Zhu, Ted Yu, Qingying Jia, Jinghua Guo, Liang Zhang, William A. Goddard*, Yu Huang, Xiangfeng Duan

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1333 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Improving the platinum (Pt) mass activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) requires optimization of both the specific activity and the electrochemically active surface area (ECSA). We found that solution-synthesized Pt/NiO core/shell nanowires can be converted into PtNi alloy nanowires through a thermal annealing process and then transformed into jagged Pt nanowires via electrochemical dealloying. The jagged nanowires exhibit an ECSA of 118 square meters per gram of Pt and a specific activity of 11.5 milliamperes per square centimeter for ORR (at 0.9 volts versus reversible hydrogen electrode), yielding a mass activity of 13.6 amperes per milligram of Pt, nearly double previously reported best values. Reactive molecular dynamics simulations suggest that highly stressed, undercoordinated rhombus-rich surface configurations of the jagged nanowires enhance ORR activity versus more relaxed surfaces.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1414-1419
Number of pages6
JournalScience
Volume354
Issue number6318
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Dec 2016
Externally publishedYes

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