- Chen, Chen;
- Kang, Yijin;
- Huo, Ziyang;
- Zhu, Zhongwei;
- Huang, Wenyu;
- Xin, Huolin L;
- Snyder, Joshua D;
- Li, Dongguo;
- Herron, Jeffrey A;
- Mavrikakis, Manos;
- Chi, Miaofang;
- More, Karren L;
- Li, Yadong;
- Markovic, Nenad M;
- Somorjai, Gabor A;
- Yang, Peidong;
- Stamenkovic, Vojislav R
Control of structure at the atomic level can precisely and effectively tune catalytic properties of materials, enabling enhancement in both activity and durability. We synthesized a highly active and durable class of electrocatalysts by exploiting the structural evolution of platinum-nickel (Pt-Ni) bimetallic nanocrystals. The starting material, crystalline PtNi3 polyhedra, transforms in solution by interior erosion into Pt3Ni nanoframes with surfaces that offer three-dimensional molecular accessibility. The edges of the Pt-rich PtNi3 polyhedra are maintained in the final Pt3Ni nanoframes. Both the interior and exterior catalytic surfaces of this open-framework structure are composed of the nanosegregated Pt-skin structure, which exhibits enhanced oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity. The Pt3Ni nanoframe catalysts achieved a factor of 36 enhancement in mass activity and a factor of 22 enhancement in specific activity, respectively, for this reaction (relative to state-of-the-art platinum-carbon catalysts) during prolonged exposure to reaction conditions.