Largely boosted methanol electrooxidation using ionic liquid/PdCu aerogels via interface engineering

Hengjia Wang; Songlin Zhang; Weiwei Cai; Bo Z. Xu; Zhixiang Cai; Yu Wu; Xin Luo; Xiaoqian Wei; Zhao Liu; Wenling Gu; Alexander Eychmüller; Chengzhou Zhu; Jun Chen

doi:10.1039/D0MH00646G

Largely boosted methanol electrooxidation using ionic liquid/PdCu aerogels via interface engineering†

Hengjia Wang,^a Songlin Zhang,^b Weiwei Cai,

^c Bo Z. Xu,^d Zhixiang Cai,^b Yu Wu,^a Xin Luo,^a Xiaoqian Wei,^a Zhao Liu,^c Wenling Gu,^a Alexander Eychmüller,

^e Chengzhou Zhu

*^a and Jun Chen

*^b

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Key Laboratory of Pesticide and Chemical Biology of Ministry of Education, International Joint Research Center for Intelligent Biosensing Technology and Health, College of Chemistry, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, People's Republic of China
E-mail: czzhu@mail.ccnu.edu.cn

^b Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
E-mail: jun.chen@ucla.edu

^c Sustainable Energy Laboratory, Faculty of Materials Science and Chemistry, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China

^d School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA

^e Physikalische Chemie, Technische Universität Dresden, Bergstraße 66b, 01062 Dresden, Germany

Abstract

Tuning electrocatalysts via interface engineering is widely adopted as a valid way to manipulate the electrocatalytic activity. Herein, the interface engineering of PdCu aerogels is successfully achieved by the integration of an ionic liquid (IL), which not only accelerates the gelation kinetics but also leads to the modulation of the interface electronic properties, enabling IL functionalized PdCu aerogels (IL/PdCu) as advanced electrocatalysts for the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) with splendid electrocatalytic activity. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations also demonstrate that IL-involved interface engineering dramatically reduces the chemisorption energy of CO-containing intermediates and thus significantly boosts the MOR performance. Furthermore, direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) using an IL/Pd₃Cu₁ anode catalyst exhibit a higher power density than those containing Pd₃Cu₁ and commercial Pd catalysts. This work highlights the superiority of designing advanced electrocatalysts by interface engineering.

Materials Horizons

Largely boosted methanol electrooxidation using ionic liquid/PdCu aerogels via interface engineering†

Abstract

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