A facile room temperature chemical route to Pt nanocube/carbon nanotube heterostructures with enhanced electrocatalysis

The fascinating heterostructure of carbon nanotube-supported metal nanoparticles continues to attract interest for developing electrocatalysts for energy sciences. Here, we report the fabrication of noble metal nanocubes carbon nanotube nanocomposites through an electroless deposition route. The as-synthesized carbon nanotubes-supported Pt nanocubes with high active and selective {1 0 0} surfaces display excellent electrocatalytic activities towards the oxygen reduction reaction, which can/will replace current/state of the art cathode catalysts in fuel cells, and thereby improve the catalytic performance and utilization efficiency. The methodology presented here could be further extended to fabricate other one-dimensional materials/noble metal nanostructures.