Reversing a Platinum Micromotor by Introducing Platinum Oxide.

Xianglong Lyu, Jingyuan Chen, Jiayu Liu, Yixin Peng, Shifang Duan, Xing Ma, Wei Wang

Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) 2022 Jun 13

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Understanding and controlling the swimming direction of a synthetic nano- and micromotor holds fundamental and applied significance. Here, we focus on platinum-containing Janus colloids that catalytically decompose H2 O2 into O2 , an archetypical model of chemical micromotor. We discover that platinum oxides (primarily PtO) are produced on Pt films sputter-coated in O2 plasma, and PtO reverses the motor possibly by self-electrophoresis. Using this knowledge, micromotors moving in either direction were fabricated by intentionally introducing or removing PtO. These findings challenge the conventional wisdom that a Pt micromotor is powered by Pt alone, and open up new avenues for controlling the swimming directions of a micro- and nanomachine. © 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.

Citation

Xianglong Lyu, Jingyuan Chen, Jiayu Liu, Yixin Peng, Shifang Duan, Xing Ma, Wei Wang. Reversing a Platinum Micromotor by Introducing Platinum Oxide. Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English). 2022 Jun 13;61(24):e202201018