A highly efficient, clean-surface, porous platinum electrocatalyst and the inhibition effect of surfactants on catalytic activity.

Herein we report a gentle seedless and surfactant-free method for the preparation of clean-surface porous platinum nanoparticles. In terms of electrocatalytic CH(3)OH oxidation, the clean-surface porous platinum exhibited better performance than platinum nanoparticles and a commercial Pt/C catalyst. The porous nanostructures exhibited 2.26-fold higher mass activity and 2.8-fold greater specific activity than the Pt/C catalyst. More importantly, three typical surfactants, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide/chloride (CTAB/C), poly(vinylpyrrolidone), and sodium dodecyl sulfate, were chosen to study the inhibition effect of surfactants on electrocatalytic performance. It was observed that the surfactants led to a clear selective decrease in electrocatalytic performance. CTAB/C inhibited the catalytic activity the most due to the stronger interaction between the OH-enriched platinum surface and the positively charged molecules. Thus, this work indicates that these clean-surface porous platinum nanoparticles may be used as efficient catalysts for direct methanol fuel cells and provides a greater understanding of the inhibition effects of surfactants on catalytic activity.