Facile synthesis of urchin-like RuCu and hollow RuCuMo nanoparticles and preliminary insight to their formation process by cyclic voltammetry

Urchin-like RuCu nanoparticles and hollow RuCuMo nanoparticles were prepared by a one-pot chemical reduction method. The nanoparticles were characterized by EDX, HRTEM, XPS and ICP-AES. By combining cyclic voltammetry and TEM, the formation process of nanoparticles was obtained. The urchin-like RuCu nanoparticles are proved to be formed via underpotential deposition mechanism and the formation of ternary nanoparticles RuCuMo was due to the replacement of Cu with Ru and the interception of Mo gradually. It was found that the formation of different morphology is depended on the precursors in the reaction system and their reduction sequences. Compared to previously reported multi-step synthetic routes, the developed method here is much simpler.