Affiliation:
1. Henan Institute of Advanced Technology Zhengzhou University Zhengzhou 450001 China
2. School of Physics and Microelectronics Zhengzhou University Zhengzhou 450001 China
3. College of Materials Science and Engineering Zhengzhou University Zhengzhou 450052 China
4. State Key Laboratory of Superlattices and Microstructures Institute of Semiconductors Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100083 China
Abstract
AbstractThe construction of suitable metal/substrate interfaces that can synergistically optimize the water dissociation, hydrogen transfer and hydrogen adsorption processes has proved to be a promising approach to boost the alkaline electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) but remains challenging. Herein, a Pt/GaN heterostructure electrocatalyst is constructed using the electrochemical deposition technique and used for alkaline electrochemical HER. The as‐synthesized Pt/GaN catalyst exhibits competitive HER performance, including low overpotentials of 24 and 441 mV to reach current densities of 10 and 1000 mA cm−2, respectively, and a superior mass activity (7.34 A mgPt−1 at the overpotential of 100 mV), which is 25.7 and 5.0 times higher than commercial Pt/C and as‐synthesized Pt/CP, respectively. First‐principle calculations suggest that the Pt/GaN heterostructure can greatly reduce the energy barrier for H2O dissociation, create a local acid‐like microenvironment through a H spillover process and optimize the value of ΔGH, leading to a remarkable acceleration of the alkaline HER kinetics. This discovery provides new insights for the development of alkaline HER catalysts.
Funder
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Subject
Materials Chemistry,Energy Engineering and Power Technology,Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment,Biomaterials