Facile Synthesis of Surfactant‐Induced Platinum Nanospheres with a Porous Network Structure for Highly Effective Oxygen Reduction Catalysis

Developing a facile and eco‐friendly method for the large‐scale synthesis of highly active and stable catalysts toward oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is very important for the practical application of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). In this paper, a mild aqueous‐solution route has been successfully developed for the gram‐scale synthesis of three‐dimensional porous Pt nanospheres (Pt‐NSs) that are composed of network‐structured nanodendrites and/or oval multipods. In comparison with the commercial Pt/C catalyst, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) demonstrates the dominant metallic‐state of Pt and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) indicates the substantial improvement of conductivity for the Pt‐NSs/C catalyst. The surfactant‐induced porous network nanostructure improves both the catalytic ORR activity and durability. The optimal Pt‐NSs/C catalyst exhibits a half‐wave potential of 0.898 V (vs. RHE), leading to the mass activity of 0.18 A mgPt−1 and specific activity of 0.68 mA cm−2 which are respectively 1.9 and 5.7 times greater than those of Pt/C. Moreover, the highly‐active Pt‐NSs/C catalyst shows a superior stability with the tenable morphology and the retained 78% of initial mass activity rather than the severe Pt aggregation and the only 58% retention of the commercial Pt/C catalyst after 10000 cycles. A mild aqueous‐solution route has been proposed for the gram‐scale synthesis of porous Pt nanospheres (Pt‐NSs). The resulting Pt‐NSs/C catalyst shows a mass activity and specific activity, respectively, 1.9 and 5.7 times greater than those of Pt/C catalyst.