Microfluidic Synthesis Enables Dense and Uniform Loading of Surfactant‐Free PtSn Nanocrystals on Carbon Supports for Enhanced Ethanol Oxidation

Abstract

Developing new synthetic methods for carbon supported catalysts with improved performance is of fundamental importance in advancing proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) technology.C ontinuous-flow, microfluidic reactions in capillary tube reactors are described, whicha re capable of synthesizing surfactant-free,u ltrafine PtSn alloyed nanoparticles (NPs) on various carbon supports (for example, commercial carbon black particles,c arbon nanotubes,a nd graphene sheets). The PtSn NPs are highly crystalline with sizes smaller than 2nm, and they are highly dispersed on the carbon supports with high loadings up to 33 wt %. These characteristics make the as-synthesized carbon-supported PtSn NPs more efficient than state of the art commercial Pt/C catalysts applied to the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR). Significantly enhanced mass catalytic activity (two-times that of Pt/C) and improved stability are obtained.

Effect of Metal Substrate on Electrocatalytic Property of Palladium Nanowire Array for High Performance Ethanol Electro-Oxidation

“…Lower onset potentials means that the electrode is more efficient as it requires less potential for the reaction to occur. 51 The onset potential obtained from Figure 3a,b was about −0.7 V, which was a negative shift of 0.1 to 0.2 V compared with the reported value of −0.6 to −0.5 V in the literature. 11,19,20 The enhanced anodic mass activity and lower onset potential suggest that the electrode made of Pd NWA on Ag substrate was very efficient for ethanol oxidation in comparison to the other electrodes made of Pd nanomaterials.…”

Improved ethanol electrooxidation performance by shortening Pd–Ni active site distance in Pd–Ni–P nanocatalysts

“…Therefore, simultaneously increasing the Ni and Pd active sites and shortening the distance between these two active sites in multicomponent catalysts holds promising potential to permit the absorption and desorption on the surface and acceleration of mass transfer between different active sites during catalytic progress. Despite tremendous studies have been made to downsize the noble metals to an atomically dispersed (single-atom) catalyst to maximize the activity of noble metals11520293031, efforts have rarely been paid to simultaneously increase the noble metal (Pd) and oxophilic metal (Ni) active sites. Thus, the controlled synthesis of ultrasmall Pd–Ni–P ternary NPs with rich and adjacent Pd and Ni active sites is still challenging but highly attractive to increase the EOR catalytic performance.…”

Defect-induced activity enhancement of enzyme-encapsulated metal-organic frameworks revealed in microfluidic gradient mixing synthesis

“…These features allow precise manipulation of liquids with high resolution both spatially and temporally to obtain mixing conditions impossible in bulk synthesis (36,37). Microand nanostructures have been synthesized in microfluidic systems (38,39), including MOFs (40)(41)(42). Nevertheless, to our best knowledge, there has not been any report on the synthesis of enzyme-MOF composites on microfluidic chips, which is far more complicated than the formation of MOFs only.…”