Wide application of carbon dioxide (CO) electrochemical energy storage requires catalysts with high mass activity. Alloy catalysts can achieve superior performance to single metals while reducing the cost by finely tuning the composition and morphology. We used in silico quantum mechanics rapid screening to identify Au-Fe as a candidate improving CO reduction and then synthesized and tested it experimentally. The synthesized Au-Fe alloy catalyst evolves quickly into a stable Au-Fe core-shell nanoparticle (AuFe-CSNP) after leaching out surface Fe. This AuFe-CSNP exhibits exclusive CO selectivity, long-term stability, nearly a 100-fold increase in mass activity toward CO reduction compared with Au NP, and 0.2 V lower in overpotential. Calculations show that surface defects due to Fe leaching contribute significantly to decrease the overpotential.

Gold−palladium core−shell nanoparticles have been previously shown to be extremely effective catalysts for a number of oxidation reactions including the aerobic oxidation of alcohols. However, the novel activity and durability of such catalysts are still poorly understood, and there are several putative mechanisms by which oxidation reactions can proceed. Previously we showed that Pd(II) salts in the presence of Au nanoparticles were also effective catalysts for the room temperature oxidation of crotyl alcohol. Herein we show an in situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) study at both the Pd−K and Pd-L III edges of Au nanoparticle/Pd(II) salt solutions in the presence of crotyl alcohol. Liquid cells with X-ray permeable windows were used to obtain quick-scan XAS data during the oxidation of crotyl alcohol, allowing for time-resolved Pd speciation information and information about the reaction mechanism and kinetics. XAS measurements definitively show that the first step of this reaction involves Pd reduction onto the Au nanoparticles; in addition, further studies of the stability of the resulting Au−Pd core−shell nanoparticles toward oxygen gas suggests that the role of Au in such catalysts is to prevent the reoxidation of the catalytically active surface Pd atoms. Catalytic crotyl alcohol oxidation measurements were done which validated that the in situ reduction of Pd(II) in the presence of Au nanoparticles did indeed result in catalytically active AuPd bimetallic catalysts.

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