Significant enhancement of the performance of hydrogen evolution reaction through shape-controlled synthesis of hierarchical dendrite-like platinum

Herein, hierarchical dendrite-like Pt crystals with a distinct morphology were synthesized via a facile one-pot method without any templates. Formation of this hierarchical structure is dependent on the reaction duration. Interestingly, different hierarchical structures show different catalytic activities. After a 12 hour reaction, tertiary structures of Pt are formed, which can act as outstanding catalysts in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The onset potential of this dendrite-like Pt catalyst for the HER in a 0.5 M H2SO4 solution is 15 mV, which outperforms that of commercial Pt/C (30 mV). Moreover, it shows significantly improved stability for HER as the polarization curve after 10 000 cycles retains a similar performance as in the initial test; this results in a loss of only 2.6% of its initial current density at an overpotential of 0.05 V. The distinct hierarchical dendrite-like structures are maintained after cycling and current-time tests, which can be responsible for the excellent performance of this catalyst.