Fabrication of Ultrafine Amorphous Pd-Ni-P Nanoparticles Supported on Carbon Nanotubes as an Effective Catalyst for Electro-oxidation of Methanol

摘要

We presented the fabrication of ultrafine amorphous Pd-Ni-P nanoparticles with a mean size of 3 nm.During the reduction, the use of borane tert-butylamine complex was crucial for the small particleformation. Notably, the addition of strong reducing reagent does not lead to the formation ofcrystallized Pd or Ni-P phases at all. The amorphous Pd-Ni-P composite was proved to be the mostefficient catalyst in comparison with Pd, Pd-Ni, and even its crystalline counterpart for theelectrochemical oxidation of methanol in alkaline medium. Moreover, compared with Vulcan XC-72,carbon nanotubes was found to be a more effective support with which 1.8 times high specific activitywas achieved.