The platinum-group metals (PGMs) are six neighboring elements in the periodic table of the elements. Each PGM can efficiently promote unique reactions, and therefore, alloying PGMs would create ideal catalysts for complex or multistep reactions that involve several reactants and intermediates. Thus, high-entropy-alloy (HEA) nanoparticles (NPs) of all six PGMs (denoted as PGM-HEA) having a great variety of adsorption sites on their surfaces could be ideal candidates to catalyze complex reactions. Here, we report for the first time PGM-HEA and demonstrate that PGM-HEA efficiently promotes the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) with complex 12-electron/12-proton transfer processes. PGM-HEA shows 2.5 (3.2), 6.1 (9.7), and 12.8 (3.4) times higher activity than the commercial Pd/C, Pd black and Pt/C catalysts in terms of intrinsic (mass) activity, respectively. Remarkably, it records more than 1.5 times higher mass activity than the most active catalyst to date. Our findings pave the way for promoting complex or multistep reactions that are seldom realized by mono- or bimetallic catalysts.

中文翻译：

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铂族金属高熵合金纳米粒子

铂族金属 (PGM) 是元素周期表中的六个相邻元素。每个 PGM 都可以有效地促进独特的反应，因此，合金化 PGM 将为涉及多种反应物和中间体的复杂或多步反应创造理想的催化剂。因此，所有六种铂族金属（表示为 PGM-HEA）的高熵合金 (HEA) 纳米粒子 (NPs) 在其表面具有多种吸附位点，可能是催化复杂反应的理想候选者。在这里，我们首次报道了 PGM-HEA，并证明了 PGM-HEA 通过复杂的 12 电子/12 质子转移过程有效地促进了乙醇氧化反应 (EOR)。PGM-HEA 的固有（质量）活性比商业 Pd/C、Pd 黑和 Pt/C 催化剂高 2.5 (3.2)、6.1 (9.7) 和 12.8 (3.4) 倍，分别。值得注意的是，它记录的质量活性比迄今为止最活跃的催化剂高 1.5 倍以上。我们的发现为促进单金属或双金属催化剂很少实现的复杂或多步反应铺平了道路。