Synthesis of composition-tunable octahedral Pt–Cu alloy nanocrystals by controlling reduction kinetics of metal precursors

Abstract

In this paper, we reported a solvothermal method for the synthesis of octahedral Pt–Cu bimetallic alloy nanocrystals (NCs) with tunable composition. Inspired by the result from our previous exploration on octahedral Pt–Cu alloy NCs that Cu contents can be tuned from 10% to 50%, we further tuned the Cu portion from 50%to75% by simply introducing n-butylamine in the reaction system. It is believed that n-butylamine plays a key role in breaking through a thermodynamic constraint in the formation of Pt–Cu alloy nanocrystals (NCs). The synergistic effect of underpotential deposition-like Cu reduction and the different complexion abilities of amine group of n-butylamine with two metal species effectively tuned the reduction kinetics, by which each reduced Pt atom is able to catalyze reduction of more Cu atoms and be fully covered with 12Cu atoms in the Pt–Cu alloy crystal, while Cu precursor is not able to be reduced solely and bind solely with Cu atoms, resulting in the successful tuning of Cu composition from 50% to 75%. In addition, we investigated the electro-catalytic activity of Pt–Cu bimetallic alloy NCs with different composition in electro-oxidation of methanol. The as-prepared PtCu3 NCs exhibit excellent electro-catalytic performance and stability in comparison with commercial Pt black and other compositional Pt–Cu alloy NCs.