Monodisperse Sea-Urchin-like Nanodendrites and Nanoparticles of Multicomponent Pd-Based Alloys for Enhanced C2 Alcohol Oxidation Activity

Simultaneous regulation of the morphology and electronic properties of precious metals is essential to achieve satisfactory energy-related electrocatalytic reactions. Herein, we synthesize a class of monodisperse sea-urchin-like nanodendrites (NDs) and monodisperse nanoparticles (NPs) of unary Pd, binary PdM, and ternary PdPbM alloys with face-centered cubic structures in a general way for the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR), where the morphologies and sizes of two kinds of nanocrystals can be interconverted by changing the solvent (oleylamine/N,N-dimethylformamide, DMF) under the same condition. Interestingly, unveiling the synergistic effect (strain effect and ligand effect) and electronic properties (d-band center) has been proven to learn the mechanism for enhanced electrocatalytic activity. Benefiting from the as-made sea-urchin-like PdPbAg NDs with a tensile strain value of 3.75%, the nanocrystals exhibit excellent electrocatalytic activity in both experiments and theoretical calculations. Also, the sea-urchin-like PdPbAg NDs can serve as an efficient electrocatalyst for the electrochemical alcohol oxidation of methanol, ethylene glycol, and glycerol. This study reports a facile way of constructing monodisperse sea-urchin-like NDs and monodisperse NPs of unary metals and binary/ternary alloys, providing a novel strategy for constructing 3D anisotropic and high-efficiency electrocatalysts, and also offers a deep understanding of lattice engineering and electronic properties with promising applications.