Boron-Doped Platinum-Group Metals in Electrocatalysis: A Perspective

Platinum-group metals (PGMs) as a representative class of electrocatalysts play a vital role in contemporary energy conversion and storage, including but not limited to fuel cells, metal-air batteries, and precise electrosynthesis. Metalloid B doping into the interstices of a PGM lattice is an alternative tuning knob and has attracted growing interest in effectively upgrading the reactivity, selectivity, and durability of surface PGM sites toward a multitude of electrocatalytic reactions, since the report on Pd–B-catalyzed formic acid electro-oxidation in 2009. In this Perspective, we present an in-depth overview on the advances of B-doped PGMs for different electrocatalytic application scenarios with an emphasis on the structure-reactivity relationship, showing how binding strengths of key intermediates can be properly tuned with the B-doping level on reactive surfaces. Insights from advanced structural characterizations, operando spectroelectrochemistry, and theoretical simulations on the B-doping effect are provided, together with our viewpoints on the future research and development of efficient B-doped PGMs in electrocatalysis.