Hypothesis: Template-free and surfactant-free strategies are highly desirable, which might be used for high efficient platinum catalyst developments. Experiments: In this work, a facile one step photochemical synthesis method was developed to prepare sponge-like porous platinum. The present synthesis was performed via ultraviolet light irradiation on a IC2PtCl4 aqueous solution at ambient condition. The final pore sizes were in the range of 1-3 nm. The walls of the pores were formed with platinum nanoparticles of 3-5 nm average diameters. For comparisons, pluronic F127 was introduced into the reaction solutions as a surfactant, and sponge-like and dendritic-like platinum nanostructures were obtained. The catalytic activities of these platinum nanomaterials were studied with both menthol oxidation and 4-nitrophenol reduction. Findings: The sponge-like platinum synthesized without surfactant exhibited higher catalytic activities than the porous platinum with surfactant and the commercial platinum black. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.