General Method for Trimetallic Platinum–Cobalt–Rare Earth Alloys on Nitrogen-Doped Carbon as Efficient Methanol Electrooxidation Catalysts

Platinum–cobalt (PtCo)-based nanoalloys are considered as efficient methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) catalysts, although their unsatisfactory dissolution of Co and antipoisoning ability of CO in acidic medium need to be addressed. Herein, adopting a strategy of rare earth (RE) alloying, we report a general in situ synthesis method for trimetallic PtCo-RE (RE = neodymium (Nd), yttrium (Y), lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), or samarium (Sm)) alloys grown on a nitrogen-doped carbon (N–C) support as efficient MOR catalysts. Impressively, the optimized Nd15Pt63Co22/N–C exhibits the highest mass and specific activities of 1.95 A mgPt–1 and 3.12 mA cm–2 among all of the catalysts investigated, which are 1.6/1.3 and 4.1/4.5 times higher than those of Pt75Co25/N–C and commercial Pt/C, respectively. Moreover, 48.3% initial activity can be reached by Nd15Pt63Co22/N–C under harsh CO conditions, better than that of Pt75Co25/N–C. It is demonstrated that the introduction of appropriate Nd can further modulate the electronic structure and simultaneously tune the N configuration of Nd15Pt63Co22/N–C, effectively improving the reaction kinetics and suppressing the CO poisoning effect for MOR. This work provides an avenue to design advanced PtCo-based polymetallic alloys supported on N–C materials with remarkable anodic properties for fuel cells and beyond.