Moxuan's paper has been accepted by the Journal of Materials Chemistry A (IF: 11.301). This work is a collaboration with Prof Tao Cheng at Soochow University and Prof Qing Zhang at Shanghaitech University. Congratulations!

中文简介：本文提出了基于葡糖糖配体的置换反应抑制策略，实现了Ag@AgPd核壳结构的合成和表面应力的可控构筑，揭示了表面应力是影响乙醇氧化反应C-C键断裂生成CO2终产物的关键因素，据此实现了显著提升的催化活性，为高效醇氧化催化剂的设计提供了理论依据。

Title: Core-shell nanoparticle with tensile strain enables highly efficient electrochemical ethanol oxidation

Authors: Moxuan Liu†, Miao Xie†, Yilan Jiang, Zhaojun Liu, Yiming Lu, Shumeng Zhang, Zhixue Zhang, Xiaoxiao Wang, Kai Liu, Qing Zhang, Tao Cheng*, and Chuanbo Gao*

Abstract: The ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR), the anode reaction of direct ethanol fuel cells, suffers from the sluggish oxidation kinetics and its low selectivity toward complete oxidation to CO2. The key to solving the above problems is to design and synthesize high-performance catalysts. In this work, we synthesize a Ag@AgPd core-shell nanoparticle that exhibits a significant improvement in catalytic performance. Specifically, in 1.0 M KOH + 1.0 M EtOH, the mass activity of the Ag@AgPd core-shell catalyst reaches up to 12.7 A mgPd–1 with a significantly improved selectivity toward CO2 by 4.5 times compared with the commercial Pd/C. This superior performance guarantees this Ag@AgPd core-shell nanoparticle among the best-reported catalysts. Mechanism study by density functional theory shows that the tensile strain that origins from the unique core-shell structure decreases the potential determining step by 39%, which plays the most important role in increasing the activity and selectivity. This work demonstrates the effect of the tensile strain in promoting the kinetics and selectivity of the EOR, which may serve as the guidance for the design of highly efficient electrocatalysts for general alcohol oxidation reactions by controlled nanoparticle synthesis.