Enhanced catalytic activity of solid and hollow platinum-cobalt nanoparticles towards reduction of 4-nitrophenol

Abstract

Previous investigations of hollow platinum nanoparticles have shown that such nanostructures are more active catalysts than their solid counterparts towards the following electrochemical reactions: reduction of oxygen, evolution of hydrogen, and oxidation of borohydride, methanol and formic acid. In this work we show that synthesised using standard galvanic replacement reaction (with Co templates) hollow platinum nanoparticles exhibit enhanced catalytic activity also towards reduction of 4-nitrophenol by sodium borohydride in water. Unlike in the case of procedures involving hollow platinum catalysts employed so far to carry out this reaction it is not necessary to couple analysed platinum nanoparticles to the surface of an electrode. Simplification of the analyzed reaction may eliminate same experimental errors. We found that the enhanced catalytic activity of hollow Pt nanoparticles is not only connected with generally observed larger surface area of hollow nanostructures, but is also due to the contamination of formed hollow nanostructures with cobalt, from which sacrificial templates used in the synthesis of hollow Pt nanostrustures have been formed. Because using sacrificial templates is a typical method of synthesis of hollow metal nanostructures, formed hollow nanoparticles are probably often contaminated, which may significantly influence their catalytic activity.