Solid-solution alloy nanoparticles of a combination of immiscible Au and Ru with a large gap of reduction potential and their enhanced oxygen evolution reaction performance

Quan Zhang; Kohei Kusada; Dongshuang Wu; Naoki Ogiwara; Tomokazu Yamamoto; Takaaki Toriyama; Syo Matsumura; Shogo Kawaguchi; Yoshiki Kubota; Tetsuo Honma; Hiroshi Kitagawa

doi:10.1039/c9sc00496c

Solid-solution alloy nanoparticles of a combination of immiscible Au and Ru with a large gap of reduction potential and their enhanced oxygen evolution reaction performance

Chem Sci. 2019 Apr 25;10(19):5133-5137. doi: 10.1039/c9sc00496c. eCollection 2019 May 21.

Authors

Quan Zhang¹, Kohei Kusada¹, Dongshuang Wu¹, Naoki Ogiwara¹, Tomokazu Yamamoto^{2

3}, Takaaki Toriyama³, Syo Matsumura^{2

3

4}, Shogo Kawaguchi⁵, Yoshiki Kubota⁶, Tetsuo Honma⁵, Hiroshi Kitagawa^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Chemistry , Graduate School of Science , Kyoto University , Kitashirakawa- Oiwakecho, Sakyo-ku , Kyoto 606-8502 , Japan . Email: kusada@kuchem.kyoto-u.ac.jp ; Email: kitagawa@kuchem.kyoto-u.ac.jp.
² Department of Applied Quantum Physics and Nuclear Engineering , Kyushu University , 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku , Fukuoka 819-0395 , Japan.
³ The Ultramicroscopy Research Center , Kyushu University , Motooka 744, Nishi-ku , Fukuoka 819-0395 , Japan.
⁴ INAMORI Frontier Research Center , Kyushu University , Motooka 744, Nishi-ku , Fukuoka 819-0395 , Japan.
⁵ Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Insitute (JASRI) , SPring-8, 1-1-1 Kouto, Sayo-cho, Sayo-gun , Hyogo 679-5198 , Japan.
⁶ Department of Physical Science , Graduate School of Science , Osaka Prefecture University , 1-1 Gakuen-cho, Naka-ku, Sakai , Osaka 599-8531 , Japan.

Abstract

Au and Ru are elements that are immiscible in the bulk state and have the largest gap in reduction potential among noble metals. Here, for the first time, Au _x Ru_1-x solid-solution alloy nanoparticles (NPs) were successfully synthesized over the whole composition range through a chemical reduction method. Powder X-ray diffraction and scanning transmission electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy showed that Au and Ru atoms are homogeneously mixed at the atomic level. We investigated the catalytic performance of Au _x Ru_1-x NPs for the oxygen evolution reaction, for which Ru is well known to be one of the best monometallic catalysts, and we found that even alloying with a small amount of Au could significantly enhance the catalytic performance.