Carbon nanotubes encapsulating Pt/MoN heterostructures for superior hydrogen evolution

Peijia Wang; Yaotian Yan; Bin Qin; Zhenyu Ye; Wei Cai; Xiaohang Zheng

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.07.039

Carbon nanotubes encapsulating Pt/MoN heterostructures for superior hydrogen evolution

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Nov 15;650(Pt B):1174-1181. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.07.039. Epub 2023 Jul 8.

Authors

Peijia Wang¹, Yaotian Yan¹, Bin Qin¹, Zhenyu Ye¹, Wei Cai¹, Xiaohang Zheng²

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China. Electronic address: zhengxiaohang@hit.edu.cn.

PMID: 37473477
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.07.039

Abstract

Achieving efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts to scale up electrochemical water splitting is desirable but remains a major challenge. Here, nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (NCNTs) loaded with PtNi/MoN electrocatalyst (PtNi/MoN@C) is synthesized by a simple strategy to obtain stronger interphase effects and significantly improve HER activity. The surface morphology of the materials is altered by Pt doping and the electronic structure of MoN is changed, which optimizing the electronic environment of the materials, shifting the binding energy and giving the materials a higher electrical conductivity, this ultimately leads to faster proton and electron transfer processes. The synergistic effect of Pt nanoparticles, MoN and the good combination with carbon leads to a high HER activity of 18 mV to reach 10 mA cm^-2 in alkaline solution, outperforming that of the commercial Pt/C. Theoretical studies show that the heterostructures can efficiently enhance the electron transport and reduce the △G_H*.

Keywords: Heterostructures; Hydrogen evolution reaction; MoN nanoparticles; N doped carbon nanotubes; Pt doping.