Kinetically Controlled Nucleation Enabled by Tunable Microfluidic Mixing for the Synthesis of Dendritic Au@Pt Core/Shell Nanomaterials

Small. 2024 Mar;20(13):e2302589. doi: 10.1002/smll.202302589. Epub 2023 Nov 15.

Abstract

The nucleation stage plays a decisive role in determining nanocrystal morphology and properties; hence, the ability to regulate nucleation is critical for achieving high-level control. Herein, glass microfluidic chips with S-shaped mixing units are designed for the synthesis of Au@Pt core/shell materials. The use of hydrodynamics to tune the nucleation kinetics is explored by varying the number of mixing units. Dendritic Au@Pt core/shell nanomaterials are controllably synthesized and a formation mechanism is proposed. As-synthesized Au@Pt exhibited excellent ethanol oxidation activity under alkaline conditions (8.4 times that of commercial Pt/C). This approach is also successfully applied to the synthesize of Au@Pd core/shell nanomaterials, thus demonstrating its generality.

Keywords: Au@Pt; core/shell materials; fluid control; microfluidic synthesis.