Enhancing oxygen reduction electrocatalysis through tuning crystal structure: Influence of intermetallic MPt nanocrystals

Abstract The slow kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) occurring at the cathode of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell require the presence of an electrocatalyst to reduce overpotential. MPt alloy nanocrystals (NCs) have been investigated over the last decade as efficient catalysts for ORR and recent studies have shown that structurally-ordered MPt NCs, i.e., intermetallic NCs (iNCs), are more active and exhibit enhanced stability compared with the corresponding randomly alloyed analogues. This mini-review highlights the recent progress in iNC catalyst development for ORR with emphasis on correlating the synthesis-structure-activity relationship. Perspectives and possible research directions to enhance MPt iNC catalytic performance are also proposed.