Manipulating the water dissociation kinetics of Ni₃N nanosheets via in situ interfacial engineering

Abstract

The sluggish water dissociation kinetics of Ni3N is significantly accelerated by in situ interfacial engineering. Owing to the unique synergy between Ni3N and MoO2, Ni3N/MoO2 displays exceptional alkaline HER activity.

Electronic Modulation of Non‐van der Waals 2D Electrocatalysts for Efficient Energy Conversion

“…Unlike alloying, which typically alloys metallic materials with one or more other metals, heterostructure engineering involves the hybridization of different categories of NS compounds with interfaces, such as sulfides and selenides, [ 114 ] sulfides, [ 115 ] nitrides, [ 116 ] carbides and nitrides, [ 117 ] thiophosphates and phosphides. [ 118 ] Taking advantage of the synergetic chemical coupling effects (e.g., modified electronic state and advantageous physical and chemical properties) between different interfaces, heterostructure‐engineered catalysts are expected to present excellent electrochemical performance for electrocatalytic applications.…”

“…Recently, researchers have demonstrated that non‐vdW 2D materials, including metal alloys (based on Ni, Fe, Co, Mo, etc. ), [ 106,146 ] metal chalcogenides, [ 57,92,114,115,147,148 ] metal nitrides, [ 81,91,116,149,150 ] and metal carbides/phosphides, [ 69,82,96,133–136,151 ] present remarkable properties for the electrocatalytic HER owing to unique structural and electronic properties. For example, ultrathin 2D Ni–Mo alloy NSs were deposited on a Ni foam substrate and were used as HER catalysts.…”

“…Niu et al. [ 116 ] successfully achieved in situ interfacial component regulation on Ni 3 N NSs based on the difference in reactivity for Ni and Mo via nitridation. The HRTEM image of Ni 3 N/MoO 2 NSs (Figure 7g) revealed the intimate contact between the Ni 3 N and MoO 2 domains.…”

Theoretical Insights into the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction on the Ni3N Electrocatalyst

“…Recent experimental efforts have shown that substitutional doping of Ni with other transition metals could vastly improve HER activity by providing alternative hydrogen adsorption sites to the (001) surface [49][50][51]. The formation of heterostructures by coupling Ni 3 N with other materials, such as transition metal oxides [52,53] or nitrides [54,55], have also shown great promise. A NiMoN/Ni 3 N heterostructure synthesized by Wang et al [55] was demonstrated to exhibit an extremely low overpotential of 28 mV at 10 mA cm −2 , owing to the synergistic effect between the two materials that favoured charge transfer processes for water dissociation.…”

Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Chalcogenides for Hydrogen Evolution Catalysis

“…In this regard, it is highly imperative to develop Earthabundant and cost-effective but efficient HER catalysts to replace precious Pt. Examples of these non-precious electrocatalysts include transition metal chalcogenides [4][5][6], carbides [7,8], nitrides [9][10][11], and phosphides [12][13][14]. Among these available HER electrocatalyst candidates, two-dimensional transition metal chalcogenides (2D-TMCs), such as MoS 2 , WS 2 , MoSe 2 , and WSe 2 , have attracted substantial interest due to their low cost, large specific surface area, high atomic exposure, tunable electronic structure, and high intrinsic per-site HER activity [4,[15][16][17][18].…”