Template‐ and Surfactant‐free Room Temperature Synthesis of Self‐Assembled 3D Pt Nanoflowers from Single‐Crystal Nanowires

By Shuhui Sun, De-quan Yang, Dominique Villers, Gaixia Zhang, E. Sacher, J. Dodelet. 2008

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Platinum has stimulated extensive research owing to its unusual physical and chemical properties. This has led to many technological applications, such as chemical sensors and biosensors, as catalysts in the production of hydrogen from methane and in the reduction of pollutant gases emitted from automobiles and, particularly, as electrocatalysts in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells. It is generally accepted that both catalytic efficiency and selectivity are highly dependent on the size and shape of the platinum material. Therefore, the synthesis of platinum with specific nanostructure has become an area of considerable interest. To date, a range of techniques has been developed for preparing nanostructured platinum. Most of these studies have been limited to nanoparticles that could be obtained by using a variety of chemical procedures. In general, such methods involve the reduction of platinum salts in the presence of organic surfactants or polymeric stabilizers at elevated temperature. The channels of porous materials, self-assembled structures of surfactant, as well as Se nanowires have been used as templates to synthesize platinum nanowires or nanotubes. Template-based methods are technically complicated, owing to requirements for template removal to obtain pure products. This limits their applications, to some extent. Recently, Xia and co-workers have demonstrated the synthesis of single crystalline platinum nanowires by a polyol process, combined with the introduction of a trace amount of Fe or Fe; poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) was used as a surfactant, and the reaction was carried out at 110 °C. Despite this, the development of mild, template-free, surfactant-free routes for the production of single-crystalline platinum nanowires remains a challenge. Here, we demonstrate a facile, efficient, and economical route for the large-scale synthesis of 3D flower-like platinum nanostructures via a simple chemical reduction of hexachloroplatinic acid, commonly used for this purpose, with formic acid at room temperature, using neither template nor surfactant. Reduction took place by the following chemical reaction:

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/888e9b633eb7d62958ca64a9b320cd183b3075a3