Earth abundant materials beyond transition metal dichalcogenides: A focus on electrocatalyzing hydrogen evolution reaction

By P. Yu, Fengmei Wang, T. Shifa, Xueying Zhan, Xiaoding Lou, Fan Xia, Jun He. Nano Energy, 2019

352 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The depletion of the unsustainable fossil fuels drives the exploration of renewable and clean energy. Hydrogen gas, as the potential alternative for the future energy supply, is now considered as the primary choice. Recently, with the assistance of the non-noble metal based compounds, electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution has aroused tremendous attention. In particular, earth abundant materials beyond transition metal dichalcogenides, such as transition metal phosphides, carbides, nitrides, demonstrate highly active and efficient activity toward hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) under different conditions. In this review, focused on these materials, we systemically discuss their recent development in electrocatalytic hydrogen generation. The synthesis routes utilized to prepare superior and specific catalyst are highlighted. Then, we provide insight into the characterization and electrochemical performance of these materials as HER electrocatalysts. In the end, the challenges of these materials, important issues about studying eletablctrocatalysts and future perspectives are stressed.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/20d8846595858773a8764622796c0318e29987dc