Dendritic Pt Aerogel for Highly Efficient Electrocatalytic Methanol Oxidation Reaction

Abstract Metallic aerogels, as featured by high surface area, porosity, and self‐supported metal skeleton, are regarded as an ideal platform for developing next‐generation electrocatalysts. However, the precise adjustment of their skeleton nanostructure to enhance catalytic properties remains significantly underexplored. Herein, inspired by the impact of the metal atoms’ coordination number on their reactivity, we devised and prepared dendritic Pt aerogels (DPAs) via a facile sol‐gel method. The synergy of aerogel structure and coordinatively distinct catalytic sites from dendritic morphology enables DPAs to exhibit markedly improved electrocatalytic activity and stability for methanol oxidation reaction. The mass activity and specific activity of DPAs are 1.28 A mg Pt −1 and 1.5 mA cm Pt −2 , which are 4.1 and 3.2 times higher than those of commercial Pt/C, respectively.