Pt@Au nanorods uniformly decorated on pyridyne cycloaddition graphene as a highly effective electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction.

Preparing metal-supported graphene nanocomposites is both interesting and challenging because of their well-defined morphologies and have potential application for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Here, we present an easy approach to synthesizing a novel hybrid material composed of Pt@Au nanorods (NRs) uniformly dispersed on the pyridyne cycloaddition of graphene (Pt@Au-PyNG), and the material serves as a high-performance catalyst for ORR. This hybrid electrocatalyst significantly decreases the use of Pt by using Pt dispersed on Au NRs and shows a markedly high activity toward ORR. The resulting Pt@Au-PyNG hybrid displayed comparable electrocatalytic activity and better stability than commercial Pt/C in alkaline solutions toward ORR. The hybrid effectively blocks CO formation to increase catalyst resistance to CO poisoning, thereby decreasing the amount of Pt needed. Free-energy diagrams for ORR on Pt@Au (111) through dissociative and associative mechanisms show that OH or O hydrogenation is the rate-limiting step based on DFT calculations.