Sophisticated construction of Au islands on Pt-Ni: an ideal trimetallic nanoframe catalyst.

We have developed a priority-related chemical etching method to transfer the starting Pt-Ni polyhedron to a nanoframe. Utilizing the lower electronegativity of Ni in comparison to Au atoms, in conjunction with the galvanic replacement of catalytically active Au to Ni tops, a unique Au island on a Pt-Ni trimetallic nanoframe is achieved. The design strategy is based on the structural priority mechanism of multimetallic nanocrystals during the synthesis and thus can be generalized to other analogous metal-bimetallic nanocrystal combinations (such as Pd and Cu islands on Pt-Ni nanoframes), which is expected to pave the way for the future development of efficient catalysts.