A facile and general strategy for the synthesis of porous flowerlike Pt-based nanocrystals as effective electrocatalysts for alcohol oxidation.

In this paper, porous flowerlike Pt-based (Pt, PdPt, RhPt and RhPdPt) nanocrystals were successfully achieved by a simple, economic, environmentally friendly route under the same synthetic conditions at 85 °C. The electrocatalytic properties of these flowerlike Pt-based nanocrystals toward alcohols (glycol, glycerol, methanol and ethanol) oxidation were investigated and they displayed enhanced catalytic performance compared with commercial Pt black. Among them, porous Pd45.5Pt54.5 nanoflowers showed the best catalytic performance with significant mass activity and long-term stability. More importantly, the current synthesis strategy can be easily amplified to gram-scale production.