Directly transferring nanostructural platinum into PtxAy-type nanocompounds for effective catalysis

Although anion-regulated PtxAy (A is anion, P, S, Se, Te, etc.) catalysts are promising in energy conversion applications, their facile synthesis is very challenging. Herein, we find a facile and general route to synthesize PtxAy-type nanocompounds by anion-regulated-engineering of nanostructural Pt. Taking PtP2 nanocrystals as sample, they can form by one-step phosphorization of Pt nanoparticles dispersed on carbon. PtP2 nanocrystals ∼5 nm in size exhibit excellent hydrogen evolution/oxidation (HER/HOR) and oxygen reduction (ORR) reaction performance. In acidic media, it only requires a HER overpotential of 22 mV to reach the current density of 10 mA cm−2, with exceptional HOR and ORR mass activity, increased by 11.1% and 28.6% compared to Pt catalysts. Also, PtS, PtSe2 and PtTe2 nanocrystals are got by direct sulfuration, selenization, and telluration on nanostructural Pt, respectively, verifying generality of the facile anion-regulation strategy to build PtxAy-type nanocompounds and accessibility to industrial-scale synthesis of anion-regulated Pt catalysts.