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Alloyed Pt-Sn nanoparticles on hierarchical nitrogen-doped carbon nanocages for advanced glycerol electrooxidation

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Abstract

Glycerol is an alternative sustainable fuel for fuel cells, and efficient electrocatalyst is crucial for glycerol oxidation reaction (GOR). The promising Pt catalysts are subject to the inadequate capability of C-C bond cleavage and the susceptibility to poisoning. Herein, Pt-Sn alloyed nanoparticles are immobilized on hierarchical nitrogen-doped carbon nanocages (hNCNCs) by convenient ethylene glycol reduction and subsequent thermal reduction. The optimal Pt3Sn/hNCNC catalyst exhibits excellent GOR performance with a high mass activity (5.9 \({\rm{A}} \cdot {\rm{m}}{{\rm{g}}_{{\rm{Pt}}}}^{-1}\)), which is 2.7 and 5.4 times higher than that of Pt/hNCNC and commercial Pt/C, respectively. Such an enhancement can be mainly ascribed to the increased anti-poisoning and C-C bond cleavage capability due to the Pt3Sn alloying effect and Sn-enriched surface, the high dispersion of Pt3Sn active species due to N-participation, as well as the high accessibility of Pt3Sn active species due to the three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical architecture of hNCNC. This study provides an effective GOR electrocatalyst and convenient approach for catalyst preparation.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the jointly financial support from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2021YFA1500900), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21832003, 21972061, and 52071174), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, Major Project (No. BK20212005), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2022M711564), and the Fellowship of China National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (No. BX2021119).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE, Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory for Nanotechnology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nan**g University, Nan**g, 210023, China

    Jietao Jiang, Fengfei Xu, Guanghai Chen, **aoyu Liu, Zhen Shen, Lijun Yang, Qiang Wu, **zhang Wang & Zheng Hu

  2. National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nan**g University, Nan**g, 210093, China

    Liqi Zhou

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  1. Jietao Jiang
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Correspondence to Qiang Wu, **zhang Wang or Zheng Hu.

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Jiang, J., Zhou, L., Xu, F. et al. Alloyed Pt-Sn nanoparticles on hierarchical nitrogen-doped carbon nanocages for advanced glycerol electrooxidation. Nano Res. 17, 4055–4061 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6288-4

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