On June 23rd, the latest research achievement in School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering led by Prof. Wang Deli entitled “Spontaneous incorporation of gold in palladium-based ternary nanoparticles makes durable electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction” was published on Nature Communications.
Developing high energy battery is one of the main solutions to address the crisis of fossil energy. The electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) largely determines the efficiency of fuel cells. Though platinum (Pt) has been considered as the best catalytic material by now, its high cost and limited reserve hinder the widespread deployment. Therefore, to lower the cost and enhance the stability of the catalytic material become the primary research object at present. Prof. Wang’s team develops palladium-based ternary nanocatalysts via replacing Pt by palladium (Pd), which resulted in a significant improvement for the ORR catalytic activity; moreover, the spontaneous incorporation of Au with the catalytic material effectively improved the stability. The stabilizing effect of Au on the Pd6CoCu/C nanoparticles was further evaluated by PEMFC. This study provides a new strategy for optimizing the stability of fuel-cell catalyst which would accelerate its commercialization and industrialization.
Since joined in HUST at the beginning of 2013, Prof. Wang has been selected as member of the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of the Ministry of Education, dedicated to teaching and scientific research, and established the research group –“Advanced Electrochemical Energy and Environmental Materials Laborotory”, which mainly focuses on the preparation and application of the nano-sized advanced electrochemical energy materials, the application of the biologic materials as resource and the in-depth oxidation wastewater treatment technologies. By now, Prof. Wang’s team had published more than 20 SCI papers with HUST as the institute of the first author/ corresponding author, among which, four were published on Nano Letters and ACS Nano. Their research were supported by the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of the Ministry of Education, National Natural Science Foundation of Chinaand HUST.
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