CO-Resistant Surface Dopant Engineering of Pt/Pd Catalysts for High-Performance Liquid Fuel Oxidation Reactions

Surface dopant engineering has emerged as a powerful approach to enhance the catalytic properties of Pt and Pd nanomaterials by introducing site-specific modifications at the atomic scale. In liquid fuel oxidation reactions (LFORs), surface-decorated Pt/Pd catalysts demonstrate remarkable activity and durability by providing engineered sites that mitigate the long-standing challenge of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. Transition metal atoms and their oxides anchored on Pt/Pd surfaces act as anti-CO centers, facilitating more efficient fuel oxidation pathways while preserving catalytic stability. This review highlights recent advances in surface-decorated Pt/Pd catalysts, emphasizing the underlying mechanisms of CO resistance, synthetic strategies for dopant incorporation, and the structure-performance correlations that define their electrocatalytic behavior. We also summarize the performances achieved in methanol, ethanol, and other liquid fuel oxidation systems using dopant-engineered catalysts. Finally, we discuss the remaining challenges and future opportunities in rationally designing CO-tolerant catalytic surfaces for next-generation energy conversion devices.