Facile air oxidative induced dealloying of hierarchical branched PtCu nanodendrites with enhanced activity for hydrogen evolution

In this work, we utilized a facile air oxidative dealloying approach to synthesize PtCu hierarchical branched nanodendrites (HBNDs). The systematical investigation on the morphology, composition, and structure of PtCu HBNDs by various techniques demonstrates they are three-dimensional open porous nanostructures. The PtCu HBNDs show composition-dependent catalysis in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The Pt 1 Cu 1.03 -D with average size about 40 nm composed of integrated ultrathin branches, presents the highest HER activity with only 20 mV overpotential to achieve 10 mA/cm 2 , 19.34 A/mg Pt and 9.64 mA/cm 2 in mass and specific activity at −0.2 V, and excellent durability. The superior HER activity is attributed to the unique porous dendritic structure and electronic synergistic interactions between Pt and Cu as indicated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory calculation. This work opens up a new facile route to design large accessible surface and high-performance electrocatalysts with low utilization of Pt for electrochemical energy conversion.