Hongpo's paper has been accepted for publication in Chemical Science (IF 8.668), a leading journal of Chemistry. Congratulations!

Title: Synthesis of ultrathin platinum nanoplates for enhanced oxygen reduction activity

Authors: Hongpo Liu, Ping Zhong, Kai Liu, Lu Han, Haoquan Zheng, Yadong Yin*, and Chuanbo Gao*

Link to the Publisher: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/sc/c7sc02997g

Abstract: Ultrathin Pt nanostructures exposing controlled crystal facets are highly desirable for superior activity and cost-effectiveness in electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which are conventionally synthesized by epitaxial growth of Pt on limited types of templates, such as Pd nanocrystals, resulting in high cost and less structural diversity of the ultrathin Pt nanostructures. To solve this problem, we demonstrate that ultrathin Pt nanostructures can be synthesized by templating of conveniently available Ag nanocrystals without involving the galvanic replacement, which enables much-reduced cost and controllable new morphologies, such as ultrathin Pt nanoplates that expose the {111} facets. The resulting ultrathin Pt nanoplates are ~ 1–2 nm in thickness, which show ~ 22-fold increase in specific activity (5.3 mA·cm−2), ~ 9.5-fold increase in mass activity (1.62 A·mg−1) and significantly enhanced catalytic stability in ORR, compared with the commercial Pt/C catalyst. We believe this strategy opens a door to a highly extendable family of ultrathin noble metal nanostructures, thus promising excellent activity and stability in a broad range of catalytic applications.