Highly monodispersed ternary hollow PtPdAu alloy nanocatalysts with enhanced activity toward methanol oxidation

Highly monodispersed hollow PtPdAu nanoalloys (HNAs) are synthesized through two-step successive reduction (PtPdAu HNAs-1) and one-pot co-reduction method (PtPdAu HNAs-2) using PEO19-PPO69-PEO19 (P123) as both reductant and stabilizer. Subsequent X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and HRTEM revealed that both two kinds catalysts have a hollow alloy structure and the average particle size reached 10.4 and 9.6 nm, respectively. This work demonstrates that the addition of Au can effectively improve the electrocatalytic performance of Pt-based catalysts. By compared with PtPdAu HNAs-1 and commercial Pt/C, PtPdAu HNAs-2 exhibited superior performance toward methanol oxidation reaction (MOR), including a more negative onset potential of ~0.2 V, higher mass peak current density of 263.5 mA mgPt−1 and lone-term durability. •Highly monodispersed hollow PtPdAu HNAs are synthesized successfully at low temperature.•The introduction of Au indeed improves the electrocatalytic performance for MOR.•PtPdAu HNAs-2 has superior activity toward MOR because of the smaller size and higher dispersion.