Morphology Control Endows Palladium-Indium Nanocatalysts With High Catalytic Performance For Alcohol Oxidation

Pd-based nanomaterials are regarded as good substitutes for Pt-based nanocatalysts for catalyzing alcohols oxidation. To further improve the catalytic performance and reduce the cost of Pd-based nanomaterials, morphology control and alloying are effective strategies. Herein, we synthesized PdIn nanocrystals with different morphologies for the electrocatalytic oxidation of ethanol and methanol. Due to the introduction of In, the amount of palladium is reduced, the utilization rate of Pd is increased, and the catalytic activity and stability are improved. PdIn coral-like flowers composed of many branches showed the best ethanol and methanol oxidation reaction specific activities, which is 3.10- and 3.30- fold of the commercial Pd/C, respectively. Moreover, PdIn coral-like flowers also exhibited acceptable stabilities after 400 cycles of successive cyclic voltammetry. In this study, In was successfully introduced into the field of alcohols catalytic oxidation, which provided more choices for the development of catalysts with better electrocatalytic oxidation performance of liquid alcohol fuel.