Integrating Pt16Te Nanotroughs and Nanopillars into a 3D “Self-Supported” Hierarchical Nanostructure for Boosting Methanol Electrooxidation

To develop durable and low-price catalysts of methanol oxidation to commercialize direct methanol fuel cell, many attempts have been made at fabricating Pt-based hybrids by designing component-, morphology-, facet-, integration-pattern-varied nanostructures, and have achieved considerable successes. However, most of present catalysts still lack robust catalytic durability especially owing to the corrosion of mixed carbon and the poor mechanical stability of catalyst layer. Herein, Te nanowire array is transformed at an air/water interface into a 3D Pt 16 Te hierarchical nanostructure via an interface-confined galvanic replacement reaction. As-formed Pt 16 Te nanostructure has an asymmetrical architecture composed of nanotroughs and nanopillars, and nanopillars are perpendicular to nanotroughs with a loose arrangement. Pt 16 Te hierarchical nanostructure has a “self-supported” feature and, when directly used as the catalyst of methanol electrooxidation, exhibits superior catalytic activity (>four times larger in mass activity than state-of-the-art Pt/C in either acidic or basic solution) and long-term durability (after 500 cycles of cyclic voltammetric measurement, more than 55% of the initial specific activity remains whereas Pt/C only remains 22.2% in acidic solution and almost loses all activity in basic solution). This study fully demonstrates that designing “self-supported” catalyst film may be the next promising step for improving the catalytic performance of Pt-based hybrids.