Mesoporous PtCu Alloy Nanoparticles with Tunable Compositions and Particles Sizes Using Diblock Copolymer Micelle Templates

Yunqing Kang; Bo Jiang; Zeid A Alothman; Ahmad Yacine Badjah; Mu Naushad; Mohamed Habila; Saikh Wabaidur; Joel Henzie; Hexing Li; Yusuke Yamauchi

doi:10.1002/chem.201804305

Mesoporous PtCu Alloy Nanoparticles with Tunable Compositions and Particles Sizes Using Diblock Copolymer Micelle Templates

Chemistry. 2019 Jan 2;25(1):343-348. doi: 10.1002/chem.201804305. Epub 2018 Nov 14.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ The Education Ministry Key Lab of Resource Chemistry and Shanghai Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Functional Materials, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, 200234, P.R. China.
² International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0044, Japan.
³ Chemistry Department, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for, Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia.
⁵ Department of Plant & Environmental New Resources, Kyung Hee University, 1732 Deogyeong-daero, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, 446-701, South Korea.

PMID: 30426579
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201804305

Abstract

A simple, scalable route for the generation of mesoporous Rh particles by chemical reduction on self-assembled block-copolymer micelle templates was reported recently (Nat. Commun. 2017, 8, 15581). Here, this concept is extended to generate mesoporous PtCu alloy nanoparticles through the same approach. The PtCu alloy particles possess high-surface-area nanoporous architectures and good chemical stability for applications in catalysis. Both the composition and diameter of the bimetallic PtCu nanoparticles can be controlled by adjusting the amount of precursor in the reaction, which affects the electrochemical properties of the material. The combination of the mesoporous structure with the synergistic bimetallic electronic effects of PtCu gives rise to enhanced activity for the catalytic oxidation of methanol compared with commercial Pt black.

Keywords: alloys; mesoporous materials; metals; micelles; self-assembly.