Dealloyed porous gold anchored by in situ generated graphene sheets as high activity catalyst for methanol electro-oxidation reaction

A novel one-step method to prepare the nanocomposites of reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/nanoporous gold (NPG) is realized by chemically dealloying an Al2Au precursor. The RGO nanosheets anchored on the surface of NPG have a cicada wing like shape and act as both conductive agent and buffer layer to improve the catalytic ability of NPG for methanol electro-oxidation reaction (MOR). This improvement can also be ascribed to the microstructure change of NPG in dealloying with RGO. This work inspires a facile and economic method to prepare the NPG based catalyst for MOR.