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

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 1-3 nm. The walls of the pores were formed with platinum nanoparticles of 3-5 nm 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.

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