Mesoporous metallic rhodium nanoparticles

• Published in: Nature communications 2017-05, Vol.8 (1), p.15581-15581, Article 15581
• Main Authors: Jiang, Bo, Li, Cuiling, Dag, Ömer, Abe, Hideki, Takei, Toshiaki, Imai, Tsubasa, Hossain, Md. Shahriar A., Islam, Md. Tofazzal, Wood, Kathleen, Henzie, Joel, Yamauchi, Yusuke
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 140/146; 639/301/357/354; 639/301/357/551; 639/638/77/886; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Nanoparticles; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15581

Mesoporous noble metals are an emerging class of cutting-edge nanostructured catalysts due to their abundant exposed active sites and highly accessible surfaces. Although various noble metal (e.g. Pt, Pd and Au) structures have been synthesized by hard- and soft-templating methods, mesoporous rhodium (Rh) nanoparticles have never been generated via chemical reduction, in part due to the relatively high surface energy of rhodium (Rh) metal. Here we describe a simple, scalable route to generate mesoporous Rh by chemical reduction on polymeric micelle templates [poly(ethylene oxide)- b -poly(methyl methacrylate) (PEO- b -PMMA)]. The mesoporous Rh nanoparticles exhibited a ∼2.6 times enhancement for the electrocatalytic oxidation of methanol compared to commercially available Rh catalyst. Surprisingly, the high surface area mesoporous structure of the Rh catalyst was thermally stable up to 400 °C. The combination of high surface area and thermal stability also enables superior catalytic activity for the remediation of nitric oxide (NO) in lean-burn exhaust containing high concentrations of O 2 . Mesoporous noble metal nanostructures offer great promise in catalytic applications. Here, Yamauchi and co-workers synthesize mesoporous rhodium nanoparticles using polymeric micelle templates, and report appreciable activities for methanol oxidation and NO remediation.