PtCu-based alloy nanomaterials have shown great potential in methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) owing to the lower cost and good anti-poisoning ability. However, the dissolution of non-precious metal makes them suffer from severe stability issues, greatly impeding the practical application of direct methanol fuel cells. Herein, PtCuIr aerogels are successfully fabricated through a one-step NaBH₄ reduction strategy to anchor trace Ir on PtCu aerogels based on compositional engineering, which serves as advanced electrocatalysts to achieve enhanced electrocatalytic performance toward MOR. Particularly, the optimized PtCuIr aerogels show extraordinary stability and the mass activity maintains 71.2% of the initial value after 20,000 s chronoamperometric measurements. Density functional theory calculations certify that the doping of trace Ir considerably lowers the adsorption energy of CO-containing substances and thus enhances the MOR activity. By employing the vacancy formation energy of the surface Pt as the descriptor, it is revealed that the robust stability of PtCuIr aerogels originates mainly from the stronger bond between Ir and Pt/Cu atoms, where Ir acts as an ″adhesive″ to prevent the dissolution and leaching of atoms. The breakthrough of the highly stable MOR catalyst could open an avenue for affordable and durable fuel cells.

中文翻译：

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痕量铱作为 PtCuIr 气凝胶中的“粘合剂”，用于稳健的甲醇电氧化

PtCu基合金纳米材料由于成本较低和抗中毒能力好，在甲醇氧化反应（MOR）中显示出巨大的潜力。然而，非贵金属的溶解使其存在严重的稳定性问题，极大地阻碍了直接甲醇燃料电池的实际应用。在这里，PtCuIr 气凝胶是通过一步 NaBH ₄成功制造的基于成分工程将痕量 Ir 锚定在 PtCu 气凝胶上的还原策略，作为先进的电催化剂，实现对 MOR 的增强电催化性能。特别是，优化的 PtCuIr 气凝胶显示出非凡的稳定性，在 20,000 秒计时电流测量后，质量活性保持初始值的 71.2%。密度泛函理论计算证明，微量 Ir 的掺杂显着降低了含 CO 物质的吸附能，从而提高了 MOR 活性。通过使用表面 Pt 的空位形成能作为描述符，表明 PtCuIr 气凝胶的稳健稳定性主要源于 Ir 和 Pt/Cu 原子之间更强的键，其中 Ir 充当“粘合剂”以防止溶解和原子的浸出。