High-yield synthesis of metal nanostructures with novel crystal phases as advanced electrocatalysts

Abstract

Crystal phase-controlled synthesis of noble metal nanomaterials, especially Au nanomaterials, is attracting increasing research interest as an emerging engineering method to manipulate nanomaterials’ physical and chemical properties. Recent studies reported the successful synthesis of Au nanorods (NRs) with alternating 4H/face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal phase. Although these novel nanostructures have great potential in the field of electrochemical catalysis, their morphology control is still under developing. This report focuses on the key parameters that affect the morphology of 4H/fcc Au NRs. This study significantly improves the experiment robusticity and the yield of 4H/fcc NRs by introducing a stabilizer. The as-synthesized products have potential to serve as templates for secondary epitaxial growth of other metals. In this study, Cu is successfully grown on the as-synthesized Au NRs for potential applications in the electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction. Future work will focus on the characterization and electrocatalytic test of these as-synthesized Au@Cu NRs.