Department of Mechanical Engineering, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA.
Sci Rep. 2020 Jun 26;10(1):10416. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-67458-9.
Polydopamine (PDA) is an emerging nature-inspired biopolymer material that possesses many interesting properties including self-assembly and universal adhesion. PDA is also able to form coordination bonds with various metal ions, which can be reduced to metal nanoparticles (NPs) as a result of thermal annealing under protective environment. In this study, PDA has been utilized as a support material to synthesize Pt NPs in an aqueous solution at room temperature. The catalytic performance of the resulting PDA-Pt nanocomposite was evaluated using an electrochemical workstation which showed comparable activity to Pt/C material for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Furthermore, Cu, Ni, and Cu-Ni NPs supported on PDA were also obtained using this strategy with assistance of subsequent thermal annealing. The phase evolution of the NPs was studied by in-situ X-ray diffraction while the morphology of the nanoparticles was investigated using electron microscopic techniques. Preliminary results showed the NPs supported on PDA also possessed HER activity. This work demonstrates that PDA can be utilized as a potential support for synthesis of metal NPs that can be exploited in engineering applications such as catalysts.
聚多巴胺（PDA）是一种新兴的受自然启发的生物聚合物材料，具有自组装和普遍粘附等许多有趣的特性。PDA 还能够与各种金属离子形成配位键，这些金属离子可以在保护性环境下通过热退火还原为金属纳米粒子（NPs）。在这项研究中，PDA 被用作在室温下的水溶液中合成 Pt NPs 的支撑材料。使用电化学工作站评估了所得 PDA-Pt 纳米复合材料的催化性能，结果表明其对析氢反应（HER）的活性可与 Pt/C 材料相媲美。此外，还使用该策略在随后的热退火辅助下获得了负载在 PDA 上的 Cu、Ni 和 Cu-Ni NPs。通过原位 X 射线衍射研究了 NPs 的相演变，而使用电子显微镜技术研究了纳米颗粒的形态。初步结果表明，负载在 PDA 上的 NPs 也具有 HER 活性。这项工作表明 PDA 可用作合成金属 NPs 的潜在支撑材料，可用于工程应用，例如催化剂。
