Single platinum atoms embedded in nanoporous cobalt selenide as electrocatalyst for accelerating hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

Designing efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction is significant for renewable and sustainable energy conversion. Here, we report single-atom platinum decorated nanoporous Co 0 . 85 Se (Pt/np-Co 0 . 85 Se) as efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution. The achieved Pt/np-Co 0 . 85 Se shows high catalytic performance with a near-zero onset overpotential, a low Tafel slope of 35 mV dec −1 , and a high turnover frequency of 3.93 s −1 at −100 mV in neutral media, outperforming commercial Pt/C catalyst and other reported transition-metal-based compounds. Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy studies combined with density functional theory calculations indicate that single-atom platinum in Pt/np-Co 0 . 85 Se not only can optimize surface states of Co 0 . 85 Se active centers under realistic working conditions, but also can significantly reduce energy barriers of water dissociation and improve adsorption/desorption behavior of hydrogen, which synergistically promote thermodynamics and kinetics. This work opens up further opportunities for local electronic structures tuning of electrocatalysts to effectively manipulate its catalytic properties by an atomic-level engineering strategy.

Multilayer stabilization for fabricating high-loading single-atom catalysts

“…The electrochemical HER performances of Ru-SA-NSFC, Ir-SA-NSFC, and Pt-SA-NSFC were also studied. The overpotentials at a current density of 10 mA cm −2 of Ru-SA-NSFC, Ir-SA-NSFC, and Pt-SA-NSFC were 62, 67 and 45 mV, respectively, implying comparable HER activities with reported noble metal-based electrocatalysts (Supplementary Table 12) [57][58][59][60][61][62] .…”

Dynamic active-site generation of atomic iridium stabilized on nanoporous metal phosphides for water oxidation

“…The X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy were measured to further probe the electronic and coordination structures of the catalysts 40 . The white line intensity of np-Ir/NiFeP in Ir L 3 -edge XANES spectrum is situated between those of Ir foil and IrO 2 , indicating a cationic environment (Fig.…”

Microenvironment modulation of single-atom catalysts and their roles in electrochemical energy conversion

“…Recently, many strategies such as construction of nonmetal SACs (121) and SAA catalysts (122) and development of hosts for anchoring single metal atoms (123) have been reported for improving the HER performance. In a recent work done by Jiang et al (124), single Pt atom embedded in nanoporous cobalt selenide (Pt/np-Co 0.85 Se SAC) was developed as an efficient electrocatalyst for HER. Fourier transform EXAFS result indicates that the Pt atoms, which occupy the Co vacancies and coordinate with Se atoms, have a positive valence state due to the electron transfer from Pt to Se.…”