Professor Gao Chuanbo from Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU) and his team proposed a method to synthesize metastable phase platinum-based nanocatalysts using non-noble metal nickel. It serves as a template to achieve efficient kinetics of hydrogen evolution in alkaline electrolytic water with a catalytic activity of 17.4 mA μgPt-1 at -70 mV overpotential, which is the highest performance so far.

This research provides a new approach to regulate the crystal phase and electronic structure of metal nanomaterials and has important implications for the development of key catalysts in energy catalysis such as water electrolysis for hydrogen production.

This research was published in Nature Communications, titled "Coherent hexagonal platinum skin on nickel nanocrystals for enhanced hydrogen evolution activity".

The following scientists -- Liu Kai, an assistant professor from the university's Frontier Institute of Science and Technology; Yang Hao, a lecturer of Soochow University; and Jiang Yilan, an engineer of ShanghaiTech University -- are the co-first authors of the work.