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Tracking the trajectory of hydrogen intermediates during hydrogen electro-catalysis is beneficial for designing synergetic multi-component catalysts with division of chemical labor. Herein, we demonstrate a novel dynamic lattice hydrogen (LH) migration mechanism that leads to two orders of magnitude increase in the alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) activity on Pd@Pt over pure Pd, even ≈31.8 times mass activity enhancement than commercial Pt. Specifically, the polarization-driven electrochemical hydrogenation process from Pd@Pt to PdHx @Pt by incorporating LH allows more surface vacancy Pt sites to increase the surface H coverage. The inverse dehydrogenation process makes PdHx as an H reservoir, providing LH migrates to the surface of Pt and participates in the HOR. Meanwhile, the formation of PdHx induces electronic effect, lowering the energy barrier of rate-determining Volmer step, thus resulting in the HOR kinetics on Pd@Pt being proportional to the LH concentration in the in situ formed PdHx @Pt. Moreover, this dynamic catalysis mechanism would open up the catalysts scope for hydrogen electro-catalysis.
Zhao et al. (Mon,) studied this question.