Manipulating the surface composition of Pt-Ru bimetallic nanoparticles to control the methanol oxidation reaction pathway.

The rational manipulation of reaction intermediates is crucial for achieving high-performance heterogeneous catalysis. Herein, using in situ Fourier transform infrared-diffuse reflection (FTIR) analysis, we report that the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) intermediates can be controlled by precisely tuning the location and content of Ru on the Pt-Ru alloy surface.