Hybrids of PtRu Nanoclusters and Black Phosphorus Nanosheets for Highly Efficient Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Abstract

Water electrolysis shows great promise for the low-cost mass production of high-purity hydrogen. The relatively high dissociation energy of water, however, often results in rather sluggish kinetics of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline conditions, even for the case of state-of-the-art Pt-based electrocatalysts.Here, we show the high efficiency of the hybrids of PtRu nanoclusters (NCs) and black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets in HER. Our PtRu NCs/BP electrocatalysts demonstrate a HER activity of 88.5 mA cm -2 at -70 mV in 1 M KOH, which is higher than that of commercial Pt/C by one order of magnitude. The observed extraordinarily high HER activity of the PtRu NCs/BP hybrids is interpreted in the framework of density functional theory. Theoretical modeling indicates that the electronic interaction between BP and PtRu NCs speeds up the dissociation of water and optimize the adsorption strength for H* species, giving rise to the remarkably high HER activity of the PtRu NCs/BP hybrids.

Co(OH)2 Nanosheets Supported on Laser Ablated Cu Foam: An Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction Electrocatalyst

“…The HRTEM images of the laser fabricated Cu foam show lattice spacing of 0.246, 0.213, and 0.232 nm, corresponding to Cu 2 O (111), Cu 2 O (200), and CuO (111), respectively (Figure 1f), which suggests the oxidization of the Cu surface after laser ablation. These micro/nano-structures significantly increase the surface area with rich defects and superhydrophilicity (Li et al, 2019a), which can be beneficial to the growth of the electrocatalysts and increases the active sites as well as the catalytic activity. To compare the specific surface area of the Cu foam before and after the laser ablation, we conducted Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurements of the fabricated samples.…”

“…As a high-power density and zero carbon emission renewable energy carrier, hydrogen (H 2 ) has been considered as an ideal alternative energy of fossil fuels (Li et al, , 2019aShi and Zhang, 2016;Jin J. et al, 2017;Meng et al, 2017). Electrochemical water splitting has been suggested as an effective approach to produce hydrogen, which has attracted tremendous interests.…”

Recent Advances on Black Phosphorus Based Electrocatalysts for Water‐Splitting

“…The Pt 22 Ru 33 NCs on the oxidized BP monolayer with ΔG H* = À 0.12 eV, exhibiting excellent HER activity in 1 M KOH with 1 order of magnitude higher than that of commercial Pt/C. [57] Apart from these above mentioned phosphide/BP, sulfide/ BP, selenide/BP heterostructures and metal doped BP, nonmetal functionalizing BP is another effective way to design good potential electrocatalysts for HER. NH 2 -functionalized BP was prepared by using urea-assisted ball milling to expose more dangling bonds and edges that favored charge transfer.…”

“…[45] Ni 2 P/BP 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 À 0.185 81 [48] MoS 2 -BP 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 À 0.085 68 [46] MoSe 2 -BP 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 À 0.38 97 [50] P-MoS 2 0.1 M NaOH À 0.226 144 [51] Cu/BP 0. [47] BPed-Pt/GR 1 M KOH À 0.021 46.9 [55] PtRu NCs/BP 1 M KOH À 0.022 19 [57] NH 2 -BP 1 M KOH À 0.029 63 [58] BP/PB BP/PB PN 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 À 0.314 À 0.148 118 79 [59] BP/Co 2 P 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 1 M KOH --62 72 [83] BP QDs/MXene 1 M KOH À 0.19 83.0 [84] EBP EBP@NG(1 : 4) 1 M KOH À 0.37 À 0.125 -- [85] ChemCatChem Minireviews doi.org/10.1002/cctc.201902288…”

“…[57] b) LSV curves of Co/BP nanohybrids, commercial IrO 2 , the physical mixture of Co + BP, Co nanoparticles (NPs), BP nanosheets (NSs), the bulk BP, and bare GCE. [57] c) Atomic structures of C 1 P , N 1 P and C 1 P N 1 P defects in phosphorene. The optimal active sites with minimum ηOER (in red) also marked by arrows.…”