Hydrogen peroxide is one of the most important chemicals widely used in chemicals industry and mainly manufactured by the anthraquinone method. Recently, direct synthesis of H2O2 from H2 and O2 was studied extensively using Pd or Au-Pd catalysts. However, extreme care is required due to the potentially explosive nature of the H2/O2 gas mixture. The electrocatalytic reduction of oxygen provides an attractive alternative for continuous on-site production of H2O2.

In this study, we reported the synthesis of bimetallic Au–Ni NRs and trimetallic Au–Pt–Ni NRs with core-shell structures and investigate their electrocatalytic properties for selective H2O2 production. The epitaxial growth with coherent and continuous lattice fringes between the core and shell materials allowed for the tuning of the oxygen reduction pathway to selective 2e− reduction, and both samples exhibited relatively high activity and selectivity for H2O2 production. For the first time, it is it is shown that through hetero-epitaxial growth of multi-shelled structure, we can selectively tune two-electron oxygen reduction from four-electron oxygen reduction. The findings obtained here may have great implications for tunable two-electron or four-electron oxygen reduction by heteroepitaxial growth of multishelled structures.

Read more in Advanced Materials, doi 10.1002/adma.201603662