Although great advances have been achieved in the field of fuel cells, the lack of cost-efficient electrocatalysts is still the grand challenge impeding the practical application of fuel cells. To this end, rational design of efficient multicomponent electrocatalysts with both high activity and stability is highly momentous for fuel cell reaction. Herein, a facile approach to controllably engineer trimetallic hexagonal PtCuCo nanocrystals (NCs) as highly active and durable liquid fuel electrooxidation catalysts is reported. Impressively, after the incorporation of Cu and Co into Pt, the electronic structures of Pt remarkably modified, leading to the enhancement of electrocatalytic performances. The optimized hexagonal PtCuCo NCs were demonstrated to display outstanding activities of 4926.4 and 3519.9 mA mg⁻¹ for the electrooxidation of ethylene glycol (EG) and glycerol, in comparison with Pt/C catalysts. The greatly improved activity of hexagonal PtCuCo NCs is ascribed to the highly exposed surface active areas and the electronic effects among Pt, Cu, and Co. More importantly, the trimetallic hexagonal nanocatalysts also display great durability with little variations in composition, structure, and activity, showing an advanced class of nanocatalysts for fuel cells and beyond.

尽管在燃料电池领域已经取得了很大的进步，但是缺乏具有成本效益的电催化剂仍然是阻碍燃料电池实际应用的巨大挑战。为此，具有高活性和稳定性的高效多组分电催化剂的合理设计对于燃料电池反应非常重要。在本文中，报道了一种可控制地设计三金属六方六方PtCuCo纳米晶体（NCs）作为高活性和持久性液体燃料电氧化催化剂的简便方法。令人印象深刻的是，在Pt中加入Cu和Co之后，Pt的电子结构发生了显着变化，从而提高了电催化性能。经证实，优化的六角形PtCuCo NC具有4926.4和3519.9 mA mg ^-1的出色活性。与Pt / C催化剂相比，可用于乙二醇（EG）和甘油的电氧化。六角形PtCuCo NCs的大大提高的活性归因于高度暴露的表面活性区域以及Pt，Cu和Co之间的电子效应。更重要的是，三金属六边形纳米催化剂还显示出优异的耐久性，并且在组成，结构和活性方面几乎没有变化展示了用于燃料电池及其他领域的高级纳米催化剂。