Highly enhanced electrocatalytic oxygen reduction performance observed in bimetallic palladium-based nanowires prepared under ambient, surfactantless conditions

We have employed an ambient, template-based technique that is simple, efficient, and surfactantless to generate a series of bimetallic Pd _1-xAu _x and Pd _1-xPt _x nanowires with control over composition and size. Our as-prepared nanowires maintain significantly enhanced activity toward oxygen reduction as compared with commercial Pt nanoparticles and other 1D nanostructures, as a result of their homogeneous alloyed structure. Specifically, Pd ₉Au and Pd ₄Pt nanowires possess oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activities of 0.49 and 0.79 mA/cm ², respectively, which are larger than the analogous value for commercial Pt nanoparticles (0.21 mA/cm ²). In addition, core-shell Pt∼Pd ₉Au nanowires have been prepared by electrodepositing a Pt monolayer shell and the corresponding specific, platinum mass, and platinum group metal mass activities were found to be 0.95 mA/cm ², 2.08 A/mg _Pt, and 0.16 A/mg _PGM, respectively. The increased activity and catalytic performance is accompanied by improved durability toward ORR.