Highly Enhanced Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction Performance Observed in Bimetallic Palladium-Based Nanowires Prepared under Ambient, Surfactantless Conditions

We have employed an ambient, template-based technique that is simple, efficient, and surfactantless to generate a series of bimetallic Pd_1–<i>x</i>Au_<i>x</i> and Pd_1–<i>x</i>Pt_<i>x</i> nanowires with control over composition and size. Our as-prepared nanowires maintain significantly enhanced activity toward oxygen reduction as compared with commercial Pt nanoparticles and other 1D nanostructures, as a result of their homogeneous alloyed structure. Specifically, Pd₉Au and Pd₄Pt nanowires possess oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activities of 0.49 and 0.79 mA/cm², respectively, which are larger than the analogous value for commercial Pt nanoparticles (0.21 mA/cm²). In addition, core–shell Pt∼Pd₉Au nanowires have been prepared by electrodepositing a Pt monolayer shell and the corresponding specific, platinum mass, and platinum group metal mass activities were found to be 0.95 mA/cm², 2.08 A/mg_Pt, and 0.16 A/mg_PGM, respectively. The increased activity and catalytic performance is accompanied by improved durability toward ORR