Optimized MoP with Pseudo-Single-Atom Tungsten for Efficient Hydrogen Electrocatalysis

Changli Chen, Wenjia Luo, Haijing Li, Tao Hu, Yizhou Zhao, Zipeng Zhao, Xiaolong Sun, Huachao Zai, Yifei Qi, Menghao Wu, Yuanyuan Dong, Juncai Dong, Wenxing Chen, Xiaoxing Ke, Manling Sui, Liqiang Zhang, Qi Chen, Ziyu Wang*, Enbo Zhu*, Yujing Li*Yu Huang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline medium is of great significance for the conversion of renewable energy into hydrogen fuel. Most catalysts exhibit limited HER performance in alkaline electrolytes due to the inefficient dissociation of water to initiate the Volmer reaction. Herein, we report the atomically dispersed tungsten (W)-optimized MoP nanoparticles on N,P-doped graphene oxide (W0.25Mo0.75P/PNC) that possesses high activity with impressively low overpotentials (η = 70 mV@10 mA cm-2, η = 49 mV@10 mA mgcat.-1) in alkaline medium. The catalyst features with the atomically isolated W atoms that can optimize the surface electronic structure by occupying the vacant Mo sites in the MoP lattice, corroborated by the X-ray absorption spectra, further leading to moderate hydrogen adsorption energy on the surface. The first-principles computation reveals that the atomically dispersed W atoms effectively reduce the water dissociation energy and facilitate the adsorption kinetics, leading to high activity. This work proposes an elegant design principle based on the pseudo-single-atom strategy to facilitate hydrogen electrocatalysis.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3639-3649
Number of pages11
JournalChemistry of Materials
Volume33
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 May 2021

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