Aligned nanoporous Pt-Cu bimetallic microwires with high catalytic activity toward methanol electrooxidation

We report a simple approach to fabricate aligned bimetallic Pt-Cu microwires with a three-dimensional nanoporous structure, tunable composition, and high catalytic activity by dealloying a dilute Pt₃Cu₉₇ precursor. Each microwire possesses inherent ultrafine nanoporous structure with uniformly distributed Pt-Cu alloy ligaments and nanopores with a dimension of ∼2 nm. Electrochemical measurements manifest that the nanoporous Pt-Cu microwires have significantly enhanced electrocatalytic activities compared with a commercial Pt/C nanoparticulate catalyst. With evident advantages of facile preparation and enhanced catalytic performance together with low material costs, the nanoporous Pt-Cu microwires hold great promise as a high-performance catalyst for electrochemical energy conversion.