One-step fabrication of trimetallic core-shell Au@PdAuCu mesoporous nanospheres for ethanol electrooxidation

The electrocatalytic performance of the noble metal-based nanocatalysts greatly depends on the structure/morphology and composition, which can be precisely tailored by the control over synthetic parameters. In this study, a simple one-step fabrication of hierarchically trimetallic core-shell Au@PdAuCu mesoporous nanospheres (MNSs) was realized via the successive reduction and growth of metal nanocrystals on an assembled surfactant template of dioctadecyldimethylammonium chloride (DODAC) in an aqueous solution. Through the change of Au precursor added, core-shell Au@PdAuCu MNSs with tailored core sizes and shell compositions and cylindrically opened mesochannels were obtained. Owing to the synergistically structural and compositional advantages, the resulting trimetallic core-shell Au@PdAuCu MNSs exhibited an enhanced electrocatalytic activity and stability toward the ethanol oxidation reaction in an alkaline condition, comparable to the mesoporous multimetallic counterparts or commercial Pd nanoparticles. Our successful synthesis of multimetallic core-shell mesoporous nanocrystals thus provides a new avenue for the construction of complex nanoarchitectures for a wide range of applications.