High-Indexed Pt₃Ni Alloy Tetrahexahedral Nanoframes Evolved through Preferential CO Etching

Chemically controlling crystal structures in nanoscale is challenging, yet provides an effective way to improve catalytic performances. Pt-based nanoframes are a new class of nanomaterials that have great potential as high-performance catalysts. To date, these nanoframes are formed through acid etching in aqueous solutions, which demands long reaction time and often yields ill-defined surface structures. Herein we demonstrate a robust and unprecedented protocol for facile development of high-performance nanoframe catalysts using size and crystallographic facet-controlled PtNi₄ tetrahexahedral nanocrystals prepared through a colloidal synthesis approach as precursors. This new protocol employs the Mond process to preferentially dealloy nickel component in the 〈100〉 direction through carbon monoxide etching of carbon-supported PtNi₄ tetrahexahedral nanocrystals at an elevated temperature. The resultant Pt₃Ni alloy tetrahexahedral nanoframes possess an open, stable, and high-indexed microstructure, containing a segregated Pt thin layer strained to the Pt-Ni alloy surfaces and featuring a down-shift d-band center as revealed by the density functional theory calculations. These nanoframes exhibit much improved catalytic performance, such as high stability under prolonged electrochemical potential cycles, promoting direct electro-oxidation of formic acid to carbon dioxide and enhancing oxygen reduction reaction activities. Because carbon monoxide can be generated from the carbon support through thermal annealing in air, a common process for pretreating supported catalysts, the developed approach can be easily adopted for preparing industrial scale catalysts that are made of Pt-Ni and other alloy nanoframes.