Epitaxial overgrowth of platinum on palladium nanocrystals

Nanoscale. 2010 Nov;2(11):2406-11. doi: 10.1039/c0nr00324g.

Abstract

This paper describes a systematic study on the epitaxial overgrowth of Pt on well-defined Pd nanocrystals with different shapes (and exposed facets), including regular octahedrons, truncated octahedrons, and cubes. Two different reducing agents, i.e., citric acid and L-ascorbic acid, were evaluated and compared for the reduction of K₂PtCl₄ in an aqueous solution in the presence of Pd nanocrystal seeds. When citric acid was used as a reducing agent, conformal overgrowth of octahedral Pt shells on regular and truncated octahedrons of Pd led to the formation of Pd-Pt core-shell octahedrons, while non-conformal overgrowth of Pt on cubic Pd seeds resulted in the formation of an incomplete octahedral Pt shell. On the contrary, localized overgrowth of Pt branches was observed when L-ascorbic acid was used as a reducing agent regardless of the facets expressed on the surface of Pd nanocrystal seeds. This work shows that both the binding affinity of a reducing agent to the Pt surface and the reduction kinetics for a Pt precursor play important roles in determining the mode of Pt overgrowth on Pd nanocrystal surface.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.