A mixed-solvent route to unique PtAuCu ternary nanotubes templated from Cu nanowires as efficient dual electrocatalysts

Forming alloys with transition metal remarkably decreases the usage of noble metal and offers benefits for electrocatalysis. Here we introduced a mixed-solvent strategy to synthesize unique PtAuCu ternary nanotubes (NTs) with porous and rough surface, using high quality Cu nanowires (NWs) as the partial sacrificial templates. We found that Au plays a key role in the enhancement of electrocatalytic performance for both methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) and formic acid oxidation reaction (FAOR). The mass activities of PtAuCu NTs after acid leaching for MOR and FAOR reach 1698.8 mA mg(Pt)(-1) at 0.9 V and 1170 mA mg(Pt)(-1) at 0.65 V, respectively. Such ternary NTs show impressive stability due to the irreversibly adsorption of CO* on the Au surface instead of the active Pt surface and the excellent structure stability. The present method could be extended to prepare other new multi-functional electrocatalysts.