Recently, Prof. Zhaoxiong Xie and Assoc. Prof. Qin Kuang (Xiamen University) et. al. from iChEM made new progress in the control synthesis of excavated polyhedral platinum-based alloy nanocrystals (NCs) with specific facets. This work has recently been published as a communication in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201602592)

Platinum-based alloy NCs have been demonstrated to play an irreplaceable role in an extensive range of applications. The reducing of platinum use and achieving of high atom utilization efficiencies are important on both fundamental research and practical application. The above mentioned objects can be realized by regulating NCs with small size or exposed high-energy facets. However, small NCs are difficult to company with well-defined specific facets, while NCs exposed with well-defined specific facets usually crystallize in convex shape and relatively large size, which possess low surface area. The NCs with excavated polyhedral structures, which are constructed by orderly assembling of ultrathin nanosheets, well gather the large surface area and well-defined facets, thus are promising candidates for practical applications. In the paper, Zhaoxiong Xie et.al. reported the synthesis of excavated cubic structure with {110} facets for platinum-tin alloy NCs by a simple co-reduction method with the assistance of the surface regulator polyvinylpyrrolidone and platinum-tin alloying process. The surface area of the as-prepared platinum-tin NCs was comparable to that of commercial platinum black although their apparent particle size were over 20 nm. Owing to the high-energy facets, the large surface area, and synergistic effects, the platinum-tin alloy NCs exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activity towards methanol electrooxidation.

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2015CB932301) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21131005, 21333008, 21473146 and J1310024).

The link to this paper：http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201602592/full