Green Synthesis of Catalytic 3D Platinum Nanostructures from a Body‐Centered Cubic Pluronic Micellar Array Template

Abstract

AbstractOrdered and well‐interconnected 3D electrode nanostructures open up exciting perspectives in catalysis, sensing and energy harvesting. Here, highly ordered 3D nano‐sized Pt mesoporous structures based on the I‐Wrapped Package (I‐WP) architecture with 13.5 nm unit cell size, previously unreported for metal nanomaterials, are presented. The samples are synthetized by soft‐template electrodeposition, using the body‐centred cubic (BCC) lyotropic crystalline micellar phase of Pluronic F68 as the template. The specific surface area of the resulting Pt nanoarchitecture is 36 ± 13 m2 g−1. The oxygen reduction reaction kinetic current is 0.98 mA cm−2; the current density normalized by the electrochemical active surface area and the weight of deposited Pt are 0.92 mA cm−2 and 153.53 A g−1, respectively, showing superior properties than conventional Pt nanostructures produced by surfactant templates. These results suggest a nanostructure based on the topology of the I‐WP minimal surface, representing the first case at this length scale from a metallic material, opening up new research directions in fundamental physics based on predicted thermal and phononic properties for this topology. The water‐based template provides a chemical‐free, eco‐friendly route for ordered mesoporous conductive nanomaterials manufacturing, inspiring future trends in the field.