Mechanically Tailored Bending and Twisting of Metallic Nanowires toward Efficient Catalysis.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41697164.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c06398.
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Abstract
Noble metal nanocatalysts are central to hydrogen evolution and nitroarene reduction, yet their performance is limited by a scarcity of active sites, unfavorable facet exposure, and ligand blocking. Strain engineering offers a route to modulate their electronic structure, but precisely exposing strained interfaces remains challenging. Here we introduce a mechanical force-driven strategy that enables programmable deformation of ultrathin metallic nanowires. Controlled bending and twisting exposes high-energy crystal facets and generates abundant grain boundaries. The curvature <i>R</i> (<i>R</i> = <i>L</i><sub>0</sub>/<i>L</i><sub>1</sub>) directly correlates with electronic structure modulation and catalytic activity. Highly curved Pt nanowires exhibit markedly enhanced performance, with reduced overpotentials for hydrogen evolution and a 10-fold increase in kinetic rate constants for nitroarene reduction. This rapid (<60 s), robust, and broadly applicable approach establishes a direct link between bending-induced strain, lattice rearrangement, and catalytic enhancement, offering a generalizable pathway for designing high-performance nanocatalysts across noble-metal and multimetallic systems.