Sea urchin-like Aucore@Pdshell electrocatalysts with high FAOR performance: Coefficient of lattice strain and electrochemical surface area

Abstract Uniform sea urchin-like Au@Pd formic acid oxidation reaction (FAOR) electrocatalysts with dendritic core-shell structure were successfully prepared via nanocatalysts self-assembly process. High electrochemical surface area with more exposed active sites as well as the suitable lattice strain were confirmed as influencing factor to enhance intrinsic activity and facilitate kinetic reaction rate, resulting improved FAOR performance. Specifically, as tuning the status of surface dendritic Pd, lattice strain presented different influence on the electrocatalytic performance. Stronger lattice strain would facilitate the surface adsorption of dissociate formic acid on the surface Pd. While, weaker lattice strain would make surface desorption of the intermediate species on surface Pd easily resulting regeneration of active sites. In this work, the optimized Au71@Pd29 DCS exhibits enhanced activity with the current density of 1405 A gPd−1, which is 8.8 times higher than that of the commercial Pd black (160 A gPd−1), as well as obvious enhanced durability.