Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2024, Vol. 56: 176-187.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(23)64570-X

• Articles • Previous Articles    

Uleashing efficient and CO-resilient alkaline hydrogen oxidation of Pd3P through phosphorus vacancy defect engineering

Yuting Yanga,b,1, Luyan Shia,1, Qinrui Lianga, Yi Liua, Jiaxin Donga, Tayirjan Taylor Isimjand,*(), Bao Wangc, Xiulin Yanga,*()   

  1. aGuangxi Key Laboratory of Low Carbon Energy Materials, School of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541004, Guangxi, China
    bSchool of Environmental Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, Guangdong, China
    cState Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
    dSaudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia
  • Received:2023-09-11 Accepted:2023-11-07 Online:2024-01-18 Published:2024-01-10
  • Contact: *E-mail: xlyang@gxnu.edu.cn (X. Yang), isimjant@sabic.com (T. T. Isimjan).
  • About author:1Contributed equally to this work.
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(52363028);National Natural Science Foundation of China(21965005);Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province(2021GXNSFAA076001);Innovation and entrepreneurship training for college students(202210602045);Innovation Project of Guangxi Graduate Education(YCSW2023140);Guangxi Technology Base and Talent Subject(GUIKE AD20297039)

Abstract:

A high-performance and highly CO-resilient hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) electrocatalyst is heralded as core material to solve the commercial deployment of hydrogen fuel cells. Phosphorus vacancies, as a type of delicate point defect, could effectively and flexibly modulate the catalytic performance. Therefore, based on the vacancy design philosophy of “less is more”, we synthesize a phosphorus-vacancy-rich Pd3P@C (Vp-Pd3P@C) catalyst with bowl-like hemisphere structure for alkaline HOR, for the first time. The Vp-Pd3P@C catalyst exhibits remarkable mass activity and exchange current density of 1.66 mA μgPd-1 and 3.2 mA cm-2, respectively, surpassing those of Pd3P@C (0.45 mA μgPd-1, 1.78 mA cm-2) and commercial Pt/C (0.3 mA μgPt-1, 2.29 mA cm-2). Intriguingly, the catalyst can tolerate 1000 ppm CO that Pt/C catalyst lacks. Density functional theory calculations uncover that the optimal local coordination environment and favorable electronic structure that rooted from phosphorus vacancy enable optimum adsorption kinetics of hydrogen and hydroxyl while concomitantly suppressing Pd 4d → CO 2π* back donation, contributing to the remarkable HOR reactivity and CO tolerance.

Key words: Hydrogen oxidation reaction, CO tolerance, Phosphorus vacancy, Vp-Pd3P@C, Bowl-like hemisphere