Synthesis and electrochemical study of novel Pt-decorated Ti nanowires

We report on a facile approach to fabricate free-standing Ti nanowires and Pt-decorated Ti nanowires via a one-step environment-friendly and template-free process. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy were employed to characterize the synthesized nanowires, showing that highly dense Ti nanowires with diameters of ∼45 nm were directly grown on the Ti substrate and that the Pt nanoparticles coated onto the surface of Ti nanowires were uniform and ultrafine (∼3 nm). Our electrochemical studies reveal that the active surface area of the Pt-decorated Ti nanowires is over 265 times larger than that of a polycrystalline Pt electrode and that the Pt-decorated Ti nanowires exhibit much higher activity for electrochemical oxidation of methanol compared to the polycrystalline Pt electrode.