Thermal Facet Healing of Concave Octahedral Pt–Ni Nanoparticles Imaged in Situ at the Atomic Scale: Implications for the Rational Synthesis of Durable High-Performance ORR Electrocatalysts

We performed in situ transmission electron microscopy of phase-segregated octahedral Pt–Ni alloy fuel cell nanocatalysts under thermal annealing to study their morphological stability and surface compositional evolution. The pristine octahedral Pt–Ni nanoparticles (NPs) showed Pt-rich corners/edges and slightly concave Ni-rich {111} facets. Time-resolved image series unequivocally revealed that upon annealing up to 500 °C, the Pt-rich surface atoms at the corners/edges diffused onto and subsequently covered the concave Ni-rich {111} surfaces, leading to perfectly flat Pt-rich {111} surfaces with Ni-rich subsurface layers. This was further corroborated by in situ aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy. Our results propose a feasible approach to construct shaped Pt alloy nanoparticles with Pt-rich {111} surfaces and Ni-rich subsurface layers that are expected to be catalytically active and stable for the oxygen reduction reaction, thus providing ...