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Research Article

Plasma-enabled synthesis of ordered PtFe alloy nanoparticles encapsulated with ultrathin N-doped carbon shells for efficient methanol electrooxidation

Xuxu Sun1,2, Zhijian Mao3, Ruiqi Wang1,2, Xiaohu Pi1,4, Changle Chen1,2, Junbo Zhong5, Qi Wang1,2(), Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov6
Institute of Plasma Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China
University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Rutgers Preparatory School, New Jersey, 1345 Easton Ave, Somerset, NJ 08873, USA
Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China
College of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, Zigong 643000, China
School of Chemistry and Physics and QUT Centre for Materials Science, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia
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Benefiting from the reactive plasma-specific effects, the as-obtained PtFe alloys supported on N-doped carbon nanotubes (denoted as PtFe@NCNT-P) electrocatalyst were endowed with the ultrafine ordered PtFe alloy nanoparticles and ultrathin N-doped carbon shells, thereby exhibiting excellent catalytic activity and stability toward methanol oxidation reaction.

Abstract

Methanol oxidation reaction (MOR), the key reaction for clean energy generation in fuel cells, is kinetically sluggish and short-lasting because of insufficient catalytic activity and stability of the common Pt-based electrocatalysts. Ordered Pt alloy structures which promise to surmount these issues, are challenging and impractical to fabricate using common high-temperature annealing. To address the urgent need for simple and rapid synthesis methods for such alloys, here we report the versatile plasma-assisted thermal annealing synthesis of a robust electrocatalyst with PtFe alloys supported on N-doped carbon nanotubes (denoted as PtFe@NCNT-P). Benefiting from the reactive plasma-specific effects, the PtFe@NCNT-P electrocatalyst features ultrafine PtFe alloy nanoparticles (mean size ~ 2.88 nm, ordered degree ~ 87.07%) and ultrathin N-doped carbon (NC) shells (0.3–0.7 nm), leading to the excellent catalytic activity and stability toward MOR. The catalyst shows the specific and mass activities of 3.99 mA/cm2 and 2,148.5 mA/mg, which are 7.82 and 7.41 times higher than those for commercial Pt/C (0.51 mA/cm2, 290 mA/mg), and 2.18 and 2.59 times higher compared to the plasma-untreated PtFe@NCNT (1.83 mA/cm2, 829.5 mA/mg), respectively. The PtFe@NCNT-P further exhibits extraordinary stability during the long-term chronoamperometry test and 1,000-cycle cyclic voltammetry scanning, much better compared to PtFe@NCNT samples even after the longer thermal annealing. These findings show great potential of the plasma-enabled synthesis of high-performance carbon-supported metallic electrocatalysts for the emerging clean energy technologies.

Keywords

methanol oxidation reactionhighly ordered PtFe alloy nanoparticlesultrathin N-doped carbon shellN-doped carbon supportplasma nanotechnology

Electronic Supplementary Material

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Nano Research
Volume 16 Issue 2,
February 2023
Pages 2065-2075
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-022-4890-5
Cite this article:
Sun X, Mao Z, Wang R, et al. Plasma-enabled synthesis of ordered PtFe alloy nanoparticles encapsulated with ultrathin N-doped carbon shells for efficient methanol electrooxidation. Nano Research, 2023, 16(2): 2065-2075. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4890-5
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