Issue 3, 2019

Emergence of high ORR activity through controlling local density-of-states by alloying immiscible Au and Ir

Abstract

The electronic structure of surface atoms has a great effect on catalytic activity because the binding energy of reactants is closely related to the electronic structure. Therefore, designing and controlling the local density of states (LDOS) of the catalyst surface would be a rational way to develop innovative catalysts. Herein, we first demonstrate a highly active AuIr solid-solution alloy electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) by emulating the Pt LDOS profile. The calculated LDOS of Ir atoms on the Au0.5Ir0.5(111) surface closely resembled that of Pt(111), resulting in suitable oxygen adsorption energy on the alloy surface for the ORR. We successfully synthesized AuIr solid-solution alloys, while Ir and Au are immiscible even above their melting points in the bulk state. Although monometallic Ir or Au is not active for the ORR, the synthesized Au0.5Ir0.5 alloy demonstrated comparable activity to Pt at 0.9 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode.

Graphical abstract: Emergence of high ORR activity through controlling local density-of-states by alloying immiscible Au and Ir

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
17 Sep 2018
Accepted
26 Nov 2018
First published
04 Dec 2018
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2019,10, 652-656

Emergence of high ORR activity through controlling local density-of-states by alloying immiscible Au and Ir

K. Kusada, D. Wu, T. Yamamoto, T. Toriyama, S. Matsumura, W. Xie, M. Koyama, S. Kawaguchi, Y. Kubota and H. Kitagawa, Chem. Sci., 2019, 10, 652 DOI: 10.1039/C8SC04135K

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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