B-Doped PdRu nanopillar assemblies for enhanced formic acid oxidation electrocatalysis.

Adjusting the morphology and composition of Pd-based materials is a promising strategy to improve their performance for the electrocatalytic formic acid oxidation reaction (FAOR). In this work, we report the preparation of B-doped PdRu nanopillar assemblies (B-PdRu NPAs) by a two-step method using NaBH4 as the boron dopant. On combining the hyper-branched structure and the multi-component synergistic effect, B-PdRu NPAs achieve a high mass activity of 1.09 mA μg−1Pd for the FAOR and retain 73.19% of the initial activity after 500 cycles, which is superior to undoped counterparts. The proposed synthesis strategy provides a simple method for the synthesis of metal–nonmetal nanomaterials with desired composition and design structure for electrocatalytic fields.