Ultrasmall and uniform Pt3Au clusters strongly suppress Ostwald ripening for efficient ethanol oxidation

•Clean and uniform Pt3Au clusters are synthesized as small as 2.1 nm.•Unique Pt3Au clusters could strongly suppress Ostwald ripening.•Pt3Au clusters provide superior catalysis toward ethanol oxidation.

Clean and uniform Pt3Au clusters decorated on graphene (Pt3Au@PDDA-G) with an average size as small as 2.1 nm were successfully synthesized, offering higher catalytic activity and stability toward ethanol oxidation than that of Pt3Au@G and commercial Pt/C, respectively. The catalytic enhancement mechanism of Pt3Au@PDDA-G was proposed and discussed, and this work demonstrated that the uniformly distributed Pt3Au clusters could strongly suppress Ostwald ripening to retain their original crystals size and morphology for highly catalytic properties.

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