Enhanced formic acid electrooxidation reaction enabled by 3D PtCo nanodendrites electrocatalyst

Abstract The lack of high-performance anodic electrocatalysts for the electrooxidation of liquid fuel remains a prohibited challenge in realizing the large-scale application fuel cells technique. To this end, we herein demonstrated a simple wet-chemical approach for preparing the composition-tunable PtCo nanocatalysts with the three-dimensional (3D) dendrites structure and active surface composition. These unique properties have enabled them to exhibit superior electrocatalytic activity towards formic acid electrooxidation with the mass/specific activities of 1216.9 mA mg −1 Pt and 3.36 mA cm −2 , 4.3 and 8.2 times higher than that of the commercial Pt/C catalyst. Moreover, the Pt 4 Co 1 nanodendrites can endure the durability test for at least 500 cycles with less decay, showing an advanced class of electrocatalysts for fuel cells. This work paves up a new avenue to promote the electrocatalytic performances of catalyst by designing their morphologies and pushes Pt-based nanocatalysts system much stronger for commercial application in fuel cells and beyond.