Gaseous NH3 Confers Porous Pt Nanodendrites Assisted by Halides

Tailoring the morphology of Pt nanocrystals (NCs) is of great concern for their enhancement in catalytic activity and durability. In this article, a novel synthetic strategy is developed to selectively prepare porous dendritic Pt NCs with different structures for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) assisted by NH3 gas and halides (F-, Cl-, Br-). The NH3 gas plays critical roles on tuning the morphology. Previously, H-2 and CO gas are reported to assist the shape control of metallic nanocrystals. This is the first demonstration that NH3 gas assists the Pt anisotropic growth. The halides also play important role in the synthetic strategy to regulate the formation of Pt NCs. As-made porous dendritic Pt NCs, especially when NH4F is used as a regulating reagent, show superior catalytic activity for ORR compared with commercial Pt/C catalyst and other previously reported Pt-based NCs.