Synthesis and electrocatalytic property of cubic and spherical nanoparticles of cobalt platinum alloys

This paper describes the morphological control and electrocatalytic property of CoPt nanoparticles. Both cubic and spherical CoPt nanoparticles were made using cobalt carbonyl and platinum 2,4-pentanedionate under different reaction temperatures in the presence of capping reagents, which included adamantanecarboxylic acid and hexadecylamine. Effects of heterogeneous species on shape of the CoPt nanoparticles were examined by replacing cobalt carbonyl with silver acetylacetonate. Our results suggest that the formation of different shapes of CoPt particles could be attributed to the affinity between cobalt and platinum, and the effects of capping agents. The size and shape dependent electrocatalytic properties of these nanoparticles were examined based on the direct methanol oxidation reaction.