Chiral Silver–Platinum Hollow Nanostructures: Seedless Synthetic Strategy and Electrochemical Enantioselective Detection

The seed-mediated solution growth is largely reported for obtaining chiral noble metal nanostructures, but multistep growth procedures and delicate seed dependence increase its complexity. Herein, we report a seedless, solution-based synthetic strategy for obtaining Ag–Pt hollow nanostructures with chiral nanoarrays on the surface, where enantiomers of 2-deoxy-d-/l-ribose and thymine are utilized as chiral comolecule inducers. By simply changing the feeding sequence, both hollow nanospheres and nanotubes can be synthesized due to the differentiated formation of thymidine as a key intermediate. In situ-formed Ag-rich nanoparticles and nanowires act as sacrificial templates for subsequent Pt growth, leading to hollow nanostructures with Ag-rich inner and Pt-rich chiral surfaces. The growth mechanism can be extended to guide the synthesis of similar chiral Ag–Ir hollow nanostructures. The chiral Ag–Pt hollow nanostructures, especially nanotubes, are fully functional for electrochemical enantioselective detection of tryptophan enantiomers. Our work provides a feasible strategy for fabricating catalytically active noble metals with hierarchical chiral nanostructures.