Atomically dispersed Iridium on Mo2C as an efficient and stable alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction catalyst

Jinjie Fang; Haiyong Wang; Qian Dang; Hao Wang; Xingdong Wang; Jiajing Pei; Zhiyuan Xu; Chengjin Chen; Wei Zhu; Hui Li; Yushan Yan; Zhongbin Zhuang

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-48672-9

Atomically dispersed Iridium on Mo₂C as an efficient and stable alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction catalyst

Nat Commun. 2024 May 18;15(1):4236. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-48672-9.

Authors

Jinjie Fang^#¹, Haiyong Wang^#¹, Qian Dang^#¹, Hao Wang¹, Xingdong Wang¹, Jiajing Pei¹, Zhiyuan Xu¹, Chengjin Chen¹, Wei Zhu¹, Hui Li², Yushan Yan³, Zhongbin Zhuang^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Lab of Organic-Inorganic Composites and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, China.
² State Key Lab of Organic-Inorganic Composites and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, China. hli@mail.buct.edu.cn.
³ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA. yanys@udel.edu.
⁴ State Key Lab of Organic-Inorganic Composites and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, China. zhuangzb@mail.buct.edu.cn.
⁵ Beijing Key Laboratory of Energy Environmental Catalysis, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, China. zhuangzb@mail.buct.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cells (HEMFCs) have the advantages of using cost-effective materials, but hindered by the sluggish anodic hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) kinetics. Here, we report an atomically dispersed Ir on Mo₂C nanoparticles supported on carbon (Ir_SA-Mo₂C/C) as highly active and stable HOR catalysts. The specific exchange current density of Ir_SA-Mo₂C/C is 4.1 mA cm^-2_ECSA, which is 10 times that of Ir/C. Negligible decay is observed after 30,000-cycle accelerated stability test. Theoretical calculations suggest the high HOR activity is attributed to the unique Mo₂C substrate, which makes the Ir sites with optimized H binding and also provides enhanced OH binding sites. By using a low loading (0.05 mg_Ir cm^-2) of Ir_SA-Mo₂C/C as anode, the fabricated HEMFC can deliver a high peak power density of 1.64 W cm^-2. This work illustrates that atomically dispersed precious metal on carbides may be a promising strategy for high performance HEMFCs.

Abstract

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