Pt Nanoshell Tubes by Template Wetting

Large-scale fabrication of platinum (Pt) nanoshell tubes has been accomplished via a simple and convenient method: porous templates are wetted at ambient conditions with a polymer/Pt precursor solution. Annealing yields functionalized membranes having Pt-coated pore walls. Unsupported Pt nanoshell tubes are accessible by selectively removing the template. We have also synthesized composite tubes having an outer Pt shell and an inner polymer core by performing consecutive wetting steps. The tube diameter is adjustable by using templates with respective pore diameters. We demonstrate that "giant" nanoshell tubes with a diameter of 1 μm can be fabricated. They exhibit nanostructured walls consisting of sintered crystallites extending approximately 10 nm and can thus be considered as a hierarchical system combining nano- and microscale features.