Beyond platinum: silver-catalyst based bubble-propelled tubular micromotors

There has been enormous interest in autonomous self-propelled micro-/nanomotors, especially those that relied on the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide fuel to generate oxygen bubbles and usually consisted of platinum on their surface which acts as an efficient catalyst. In this study, we developed Pt-free tubular micromotors by using a less expensive silver catalyst for bubble propulsion. Tubular micromotors prepared with silver catalyst exhibited high mobility and could reduce reliance on scarce Pt metal.