Oxygen reduction properties of spongy platinum nanosheets loaded carbon

Abstract

Recently, our research group found that spongy platinum nanosheets are obtained by reducing Pt salts with sodium boron hydride (SBH) within mixed-surfactant liquid crystal templates. In this study, an attempt was made to load such Pt nanosheets on carbon-support with keeping the nano-structure. Electrochemical study revealed that the spongy Pt nanosheets loaded carbon has large electrochemically active surface area of Pt, and fairly high in electrochemical oxidation and reduction activity. Especially, the observed oxygen reduction activity was higher than that of commercially available ones.