Facile one-pot aqueous fabrication of interconnected ultrathin PtPbPd nanowires as advanced electrocatalysts for ethanol oxidation and oxygen reduction reactions

The catalytic features of Pt-based advanced materials closely correlate with the compositions, morphology and structure. Hence, interconnected trimetallic PtPbPd ultrathin nanowires (PtPbPd NWs) were synthesized by octylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol (NP-40)-mediated one-pot aqueous method, using in-situ generated hydrogen bubbles as the dynamic template. It is found that the types of the precursors and the amount of NP-40 are critical in this synthesis. The as-obtained architectures showed remarkable improvement in the electrocatalytic properties for ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), surpassing those of commercial Pt/C (20 wt%), homemade PtPd NWs, PtPb NWs and PdPb NWs. Specifically, the mass activity (MA)/specific activity (SA) of PtPbPd NWs (1.20 A mg−1/2.78 mA cm−2) is higher than those of Pt/C (0.86 A mg−1/1.79 mA cm−2) in 0.5 M KOH solution. Furthermore, the as-synthesized catalyst displayed a positive-shift of the onset potential (Eonset, 0.993 V) for ORR over Pt/C (0.895 V) in 0.1 M KOH electrolyte. These scenarios manifest that this approach provides some new valuable guidelines for preparing novel trimetallic nanocatalysts in energy storage and conversion applications.