PtCo-excavated rhombic dodecahedral nanocrystals for efficient electrocatalysis
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 28, 2025
Synthesis of Metal Nanoparticles Supported on Carbon Nanotube with Doped Co and N Atoms and its Catalytic Applications in Hydrogen Production
Published on: December 6, 2021
Cong Shen1, Xuemin Li1, Yajing Wei1
1State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces & Department of Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University Xiamen 361005 P. R. China yqjiang@xmu.edu.cn zzxie@xmu.edu.cn +86-592-2183360.
Abstract:
Platinum (Pt)-based catalysts have shown excellent catalytic performance in many fields, particularly for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and direct oxidation of small fuel molecules. Further development of Pt-based electrocatalysts relies on the morphology design of Pt-based alloy nanocrystals (NCs) with highly accessible and active surface sites to optimize Pt atomic utilization. In this work, we reported PtCo-excavated rhombic dodecahedral (ERD) NCs consisting of the self-assembly of 24 ultrathin nanosheets synthesized by a simple wet chemical method. The morphology can be regulated from convex to excavated polyhedra by controlling the amount of formaldehyde and the molar ratio of the Co/Pt precursor. The as-prepared PtCo ERD NCs/C catalyst exhibits excellent ORR performance, which has about 12 times higher specific activity and 6 times higher mass activity than the commercial Pt/C catalyst. It also displays good electrocatalytic ability towards methanol oxidation, in which the specific activity and mass activity are about 6 times higher and 2 times higher than the commercial Pt/C, respectively. Their enhanced activity is attributed to the excavated structure and alloy feature.
