Epitaxial growth of highly atomically ordered Pt-Fe nanoparticles from carbon nanotube bundles as durable oxygen reduction electrocatalysts

Intermetallic Pt-based nanoparticles have displayed excellent activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in fuel cells. However, it remains a great challenge to synthesize highly atomically ordered Pt-based nanoparticle catalysts because the formation of an atomically ordered structure usually requires high-temperature annealing accompanied by grain sintering. Here we report the direct epitaxial growth of well-aligned, highly atomically ordered Pt3Fe and PtFe nanoparticles (< 5 nm) on single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) bundle films. The long-range periodically symmetric van der Waals (vdW) interactions between SWCNT bundles and Pt-Fe nanoparticles play an important role in promoting not only the alignment ordering of inter-nanoparticles but also the atomic ordering of intra-nanoparticles. The ordered Pt3Fe/SWCNT hybrid catalyst showed enhanced ORR catalytic performance of 2.3-fold higher mass activity and 3.1-fold higher specific activity than commercial Pt/C. Moreover, the formation of an interlocked interface and strong vdW interaction endow the Pt-Fe/SWCNT catalysts with extreme long-term stability in potential cycling and excellent anti-thermal sintering ability.