A review of hollow Pt-based nanocatalysts applied in proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have found a wide variety of commercial applications to resolve the energy crisis and environmental pollution. Then the design of novel Pt-based catalysts with enhancing catalytic activity, stability and low amount of Pt used are crucial. Pt-alloy catalysts, core-shell structured Pt-based catalysts, Pt-monolayer catalysts, Pt-based catalysts with high index, nanoporous Pt-based catalysts, hollow Pt-based nanocatalysts, and non-noble catalysts are the common way to resolve the question partly. Among these catalysts, hollow Pt-based catalysts used in PEMFCs have received much attention due to the increased surface area, low density, improved utilization of the unit Pt. In this review, we present a summarization of the progress made for synthesizing hollow Pt-based nanocatalysts using different techniques. Hollow pure Pt catalysts, Pt-based alloy catalysts and other correlative hollow precious nanomaterials are covered. Galvanic replacement method is still the most used and prospective method in this field. Finding facile and appropriate sacrificial template and controllable shape will be the key in the development of this method. We also summarize other different methods and discuss the foreground of these methods in the future. The emergent challenges and future developments of hollow Pt-based nanocatalysts are also discussed in this paper. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.