Simple wet-chemical strategy for large-scaled synthesis of snowflake-like PdAu alloy nanostructures as effective electrocatalysts of ethanol and ethylene glycol oxidation

In this work, snowflake-like bimetallic PdAu alloy nanostructures with tunable composition and size were large-scaled synthesized at room temperature via a facile wet-chemical strategy. Their morphology and size depend on the composition and concentration of poly(1-vinyl-3-ethylimidazolium bromide) (PVEIB) as the stabilizing agent and structure director. The as-prepared architectures exhibit excellent electrocatalytic activity and stability towards ethanol and ethylene glycol oxidation in alkaline media. And snowflake-like Pd1Au3 nanostructures display the best catalytic performance. This is due to the unique snowflake-like structures, alloy nature, and tunable composition and size, along with effectively avoiding the support corrosion usually occurred on commercial catalysts.