Mesoporous microcapsules with noble metal or noble metal oxide shells and their application in electrocatalysis

Abstract

A versatile peripheral-pore-nanocasting method is employed to fabricate a series of novel microcapsules with mesoporous shell of noble metal or noble metal oxides, including Pt, PdO, RuO₂ and IrO₂. The shell thickness of these hollow microcapsules can be adjusted by controlling the depth of 3-amino-propyltriethoxysilane (APS) modification. By pre-filling the guest species or their precursors into the 3-D pores of HMS (hexagonal mesoporous molecular sieves) spheres, an interesting material with a “sphere in shell” structure could be fabricated via the same method. Both the mesoporous platinum hollow microcapsules and carbon spheres encapsulated in platinum microcapsules have shown high mass-normalized activities as a catalyst in the oxidation of methanol, a fundemantal reaction in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC).