One-Pot Seedless Aqueous Design of Metal Nanostructures for Energy Electrocatalytic Applications

Abstract

Over the past several decades, extensive efforts have been undertaken to find methods to synthesize advanced electrocatalysts that possess rationally controllable sizes, shapes, crystallinities, compositions and structures for efficient energy conversion technologies. Of these methods, the one-pot seedless synthetic method in aqueous solution at ambient temperature has attracted extensive attention from researchers because it is a simple, inexpensive, energy-efficient, safe and less toxic method for the synthesis of electrocatalytic nanomaterials. In this review, recent developments in one-pot seedless synthetic strategies for the design of various structures of Au, Pt, Pd, Ag and multimetallic nanocrystals in aqueous solutions at ambient temperatures will be introduced, primarily focusing on the structure–electrocatalytic performance relationships of the as-prepared metal nanocrystals. Current challenges and outlooks for future research directions will also be provided in this promising research field.

Keywords

Metal nanostructures / Aqueous solutions / One-pot seedless synthesis / Ambient temperature / Electrocatalysis

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Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China(51671003)

National Basic Research Program of China(2016YFB0100201)

China Postdoctoral Science Foundation(2017M620494)