Synthesis and electrochemical study of novel Pt-decorated Ti nanowires

We report on a facile approach to fabricate free-standing Ti nanowires and Pt-decorated Ti nanowires via a one-step environment-friendly and template-free process. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy were employed to characterize the synthesized nanowires, showing that highly dense Ti nanowires with diameters of similar to 45 nm were directly grown on the Ti substrate and that the Pt nanoparticles coated onto the surface of Ti nanowires were uniform and ultrafine (similar to 3 nm). Our electrochemical studies reveal that the active surface area of the Pt-decorated Ti nanowires is over 265 times larger than that of a polycrystalline Pt electrode and that the Pt-decorated Ti nanowires exhibit much higher activity for electrochemical oxidation of methanol compared to the polycrystalline Pt electrode. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.