One step photochemical synthesis of clean surfaced sponge-like porous platinum with high catalytic performances

Abstract

HypothesisTemplate-free and surfactant-free strategies are highly desirable, which might be used for high efficient platinum catalyst developments. ExperimentsIn this work, a facile one step photochemical synthesis method was developed to prepare sponge-like porous platinum. The present synthesis was performed via ultraviolet light irradiation on a K2PtCl4 aqueous solution at ambient condition. The final pore sizes were in the range of 1–3nm. The walls of the pores were formed with platinum nanoparticles of 3–5nm average diameters. For comparisons, pluronic F127 was introduced into the reaction solutions as a surfactant, and sponge-like and dendritic-like platinum nanostructures were obtained. The catalytic activities of these platinum nanomaterials were studied with both menthol oxidation and 4-nitrophenol reduction. FindingsThe sponge-like platinum synthesized without surfactant exhibited higher catalytic activities than the porous platinum with surfactant and the commercial platinum black.