Two-dimensional (2D) layered catalysts have been considered as a class of ideal catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) because of their abundant active sites with almost zero Gibbs energy change for hydrogen adsorption. Despite the promising performance, the design of stable and economic electrochemical catalyst based on 2D materials remains to be resolved for industrial-scale hydrogen production. Here, we report layered platinum tellurides, mitrofanovite Pt3Te4, which serves as an efficient and stable catalyst for HER with an overpotential of 39.6 mV and a Tafel slope of 32.7 mV/dec together with a high current density exceeding 7000 mA/cm2. Pt3Te4 was synthesized as nanocrystals on a metallic molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2) template by a rapid electrochemical method. X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission microscopy revealed that the Pt3Te4 nanocrystals have a unique layered structure with repeated monolayer units of PtTe and PtTe2. Theoretical calculations exhibit that Pt3Te4 with numerous edges shows near-zero Gibbs free-energy change of hydrogen adsorption, which shows the excellent HER performance as well as the extremely large exchange current density for massive hydrogen production.

We report the electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) of two-dimensional metallic transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). TMTe2 (TM: Mo, W, and V) single crystals were synthesized and characterized by optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and electrochemical measurements. We found that TMTe2 acts as a HER-active catalyst due to the inherent catalytic activity of its basal planes. Among the three metallic TMTe2, VTe2 shows the best HER performance with an overpotential of 441 mV and a Tafel slope of 70 mV/dec. It is 668 mV and 137 mV/dec for MoTe2 and 692 mV and 169 mV/dec for WTe2. Even though VTe2 has the lowest values in the exchange current density, the active site density, and turn-over-frequency (TOF) among the three TMTe2, the lowest charge transfer resistance (RCT) of VTe2 seems to be critical to achieving the best HER performance. First-principles calculations revealed that the basal-plane-active HER performance of metallic TMDs can be further enhanced with some Te vacancies. Our study paves the way to further study of the inherent catalytic activity of metallic 2D materials for active hydrogen production.

Silver-based nanomaterials have been versatile building blocks of various photoassisted energy applications; however, they have demonstrated poor electrochemical catalytic performance and stability, in particular, in acidic environments. Here we report a stable and high-performance electrochemical catalyst of silver telluride (AgTe) for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), which was synthesized with a nanoporous structure by an electrochemical synthesis method. X-ray spectroscopy techniques on the nanometer scale and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy revealed an orthorhombic structure of nanoporous AgTe with precise lattice constants. First-principles calculations show that the AgTe surface possesses highly active catalytic sites for the HER with an optimized Gibbs free energy change of hydrogen adsorption (−0.005 eV). Our nanoporous AgTe demonstrates exceptional stability and performance for the HER, an overpotential of 27 mV, and a Tafel slope of 33 mV/dec. As a stable catalyst for hydrogen production, AgTe is comparable to platinum-based catalysts and provides a breakthrough for high-performance electrochemical catalysts.

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Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are considered as promising catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) owing to their abundant active sites such as atomic vacancies and step edges. Moreover, TMDs have polymorphism, which has stimulated extensive studies on tuning of surface electronic structures for an active HER. The polymorphism in TMDs provides an opportunity for new hybrid catalysts with TMDs and other catalytic metals via surface engineering that can create a novel functional surface of the catalytic electrode for the active HER. Here, we report a hybrid catalyst with monoclinic MoTe2 and platinum (Pt) for the HER. Pt atoms were chemically bound to the surface of monoclinic MoTe2 that has an atomically distorted lattice structure, which produces a distinct Pt-Te alloy layer. The Pt/MoTe2 hybrid catalyst exhibits an active HER with a Tafel slope of 22 mV per decade and an exchange current density of 1.0 mA/cm2, which are the best values among those reported for TMD-based catalysts. The use of minimum amount of Pt on atomically distorted metallic TMDs realizes rich catalytic active sites on large basal planes for efficient hydrogen production.