Edge-Rich Pt-O-Ce Sites in CeO2 Supported Patchy Atomic-Layer Pt Enable a Non-CO Pathway for Efficient Methanol Oxidation

Abstract

Rational design of efficient methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) catalyst that undergo non-CO pathway is essential to resolve the long-standing poisoning issue. However, it remains a huge challenge due to the rather difficulty in maximizing the non-CO pathway by the selective coupling between the key *CHO and *OH intermediates. Here, we report a high-performance electrocatalyst of patchy atomic-layer Pt epitaxial growth on CeO₂ nanocube (Pt ALs/CeO₂) with maximum electronic metal-support interaction for enhancing the coupling selectively. The small-size monolayer material achieves an optimal geometrical distance between edge Pt-O-Ce sites and *OH absorbed on CeO₂, which well restrains the dehydrogenation of *CHO, resulting in the non-CO pathway. Meanwhile, the *CHO/*CO intermediate generated at inner Pt-O-Ce sites can migrate to edge, inducing the subsequent coupling reaction, thus avoiding poisoning while promoting reaction efficiency. Consequently, Pt ALs/CeO₂ exhibits exceptionally catalytic stability with negligible degradation even under 1000 s pure CO poisoning operation and high mass activity (14.87 A/mg_Pt), enabling it one of the best-performing alkali-stable MOR catalysts.

Keywords: Atomic-layer Platinum; electronic metal-support interaction; methanol oxidation reaction; non-CO pathway.