Bimetallic PtCo alloyed nanodendritic assemblies as an advanced efficient and robust electrocatalyst for highly efficient hydrogen evolution and oxygen reduction

Herein, we developed a facile one-step strategy to construct uniform bimetallic Pt75Co25 alloyed nanodendritic assemblies (Pt75Co25 NDAs) in oleylamine (OAm). OAm and cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC) acted as reductant and structure-director, respectively. l-Proline served as the green co-reductant and co-structure-directing agent. By virtue of the unique structures and cooperative effects of the bimetals, the obtained catalyst displayed remarkable enlargement in catalytic properties for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in 0.5 M H2SO4 at 1600 rpm with a scan rate of 5 mV s−1 and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in 0.5 M KOH at 5 mV s−1 with a rotation rate of 1600 rpm, outperforming home-made Pt60Co40 nanoparticles (NPs), Pt82Co18 NPs and commercial Pt black catalysts. This work offers some guidance for novel dendritic nanoassemblies as advanced efficient and robust electrocatalysts. [Display omitted] •Pt75Co25 NDAs were fabricated by a one-pot method.•l-Proline and CTAC acted as the co-structure-directors.•The specific architectures have highly enlarged specific surface area.•The catalyst showed dramatically boosted catalytic performances for HER and ORR.