Facile Synthesis of Platinum Nanoelectrocatalyst with Urchinlike Morphology

A very simple and effective wet chemical route to direct synthesis of well-dispersed Pt nanoparticles with urchinlike morphology is proposed, which was carried out by simply mixing H 2 PtCl 6 aqueous solution and poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) with the initial molar ratios of 1:3.5 kept constant at 30 °C for 3 days in the presence of formic acid. As-prepared urchinlike Pt nanostructures showed excellent electrocatalytic activity toward the reduction of dioxygen and oxidation of methanol and could be used as a promising nanoelectrocatalyst.