A universal synthesis strategy for single atom dispersed cobalt/metal clusters heterostructure boosting hydrogen evolution catalysis at all pH values

By Shuai Yuan, Zonghua Pu, Huang Zhou, Jun-xia Yu, Ibrahim Saana Amiinu, Jiawei Zhu, Qirui Liang, Jinlong Yang, Daping He, Zhi-Yi Hu and 2 more. Nano Energy, 2019

216 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The development of a stable, efficient and economic catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) of water splitting is one of the most hopeful approaches to confront the environmental and energy crisis. A two-step method is employed to obtain metal clusters (Ru, Pt, Pd etc.) combining single cobalt atoms anchored on nitrogen-doped carbon (Ru/Pt/Pd@Co-SAs/N-C). Based on the synergistic effect between Ru clusters and single cobalt atoms, Ru@Co-SAs/N-C exhibits an outstanding HER electrocatalytic activity. Specifically, Ru@Co-SAs/N-C only needs 7 mV overpotential at 10 mA cm-2 in 1 M KOH solution, which is much better than commercial 20 wt% Pt/C (40 mV) catalyst. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations further reveal the synergy effect between surface Ru nanoclusters and Co-SAs/N-C toward hydrogen adsorption for HER. Additionally, Ru@Co-SAs/N-C also exhibits excellent catalytic ability and durability under acidic and neutral media. The present study opens a new avenue towards the design of metal clusters/single cobalt atoms heterostructures with outstanding performance toward HER and beyond.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d4391cdd28c70e133404b108bb695a5ee88a2a50