A novel strategy to construct Ti-Si mixed oxides shell for yolk@shell Pt nanocatalyst

In this work, a novel strategy has been proposed to synthesize a hierarchical Pt@TiO 2 -mSiO 2 yolk@shell nanocatalyst firstly. Inner active sites could be protected by the TiO 2 -mSiO 2 shell. The formation mechanism involves the in-situ growth of TiO 2 nanosheets and simultaneous redeposition of etch-released silica species. TEM images were employed to characterize each step of the synthesis process. During the hydrothermal process, original TiO 2 layer can be converted into a hierarchical structure and the inner SiO 2 sphere was etched out automatically. Furthermore, the reduction of 4-nitrophenol had been used to test the hierarchical Pt@TiO 2 -mSiO 2 yolk@shell nanocatalyst. The mixed oxides shell was constructed with in-situ grown hierarchical TiO 2 nanosheets and redeposited SiO 2 .