Synergistic Effect of Dual-Doped Carbon on Mo2C Nanocrystals Facilitates Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution

Abstract

AbstractMolybdenum carbide (Mo2C) materials are promising electrocatalysts with potential applications in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) due to low cost and Pt-like electronic structures. Nevertheless, their HER activity is usually hindered by the strong hydrogen binding energy. Moreover, the lack of water-cleaving sites makes it difficult for the catalysts to work in alkaline solutions. Here, we designed and synthesized a B and N dual-doped carbon layer that encapsulated on Mo2C nanocrystals (Mo2C@BNC) for accelerating HER under alkaline condition. The electronic interactions between the Mo2C nanocrystals and the multiple-doped carbon layer endow a near-zero H adsorption Gibbs free energy on the defective C atoms over the carbon shell. Meanwhile, the introduced B atoms afford optimal H2O adsorption sites for the water-cleaving step. Accordingly, the dual-doped Mo2C catalyst with synergistic effect of non-metal sites delivers superior HER performances of a low overpotential (99 mV@10 mA cm−2) and a small Tafel slope (58.1 mV dec−1) in 1 M KOH solution. Furthermore, it presents a remarkable activity that outperforming the commercial 10% Pt/C catalyst at large current density, demonstrating its applicability in industrial water splitting. This study provides a reasonable design strategy towards noble-metal-free HER catalysts with high activity.