Morphological control and evolution of octahedral and truncated trisoctahedral Pt-Au alloy nanocrystals under microwave irradiation.

Uniform and well-defined truncated trisoctahedral and octahedral Pt-Au alloy nanocrystals were fabricated by co-reducing H(2)PtC(l6)-HAuC(l4) with tetraethylene glycol (TEG) under microwave irradiation for only 140 s. Iodide ions were critical to the morphological control and evolution of Pt-Au alloy nanostructures. The as-prepared Pt-Au alloy nanocrystals exhibited efficient electrocatalytic activities.