One-pot fabrication of N-doped graphene supported dandelion-like PtRu nanocrystals as efficient and robust electrocatalysts towards formic acid oxidation.

Engineering the architectures of metal nanocatalysts offers a valid approach for the development of electrocatalysts with greatly enhanced performances. Herein, we report the one-pot method to successfully fabricate the N-doped graphene (NG) supported dandelion-like PtRu nanocrystals. Such dandelion-like nanocrystals with different compositions can be readily tuned via the addition of different amounts of RuCl3 . By virtue of the large accessible surface active areas, synergistic and electronic effect, as well as the successful introduction of NG, the as-obtained PtRu/NG with optimized compositions display outstandingly high electrocatalytic activity towards formic acid electrooxidation with the mass and specific activities of 1857.4mAmg-1 and 18.3mAcm-2 , 6.3 and 3.3 times higher than those of commercial Pt/C, respectively. Moreover, the Pt1 Ru1 /NG can endure at least 500 cycles with less activity decay, showing a new class of Pt-based electrocatalysts with enhanced performance for fuel cells and beyond.