TY - JOUR
T1 - Spontaneous Alkaline Water Electrolysis Driven by the “OH-Baton”
AU - Liu, Zhi
AU - Yang, Jin
AU - Yan, Yuanyuan
AU - Feng, Yongqiang
AU - Wang, Meiling
AU - Wang, Xiaomin
AU - Chen, Guanjun
AU - Zhou, Jiadong
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 Wiley-VCH GmbH.
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - Nano-metal particles integrating with single-atom catalysts (NMP-SACs) have been constructed recently for accelerated alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, the design of NMP-SACs primarily aims at the separate adsorption of *OH and H*, while neglecting the *OH desorption, causing *OH blockage and slow kinetics. To address this, Mo2C is introduced to NMP-SACs (e.g., Pt nanoparticles-Pt atom, Ptn-Pt1) by a “one-step dual-confinement pyrolysis” strategy for Ptn-Pt1@Mo2C, where Pt1 precisely confined by Mo2C with Ptn remaining adjacent to Pt1@Mo2C. Experiments and calculations demonstrate that Mo2C acting as an “OH-baton” helps overcome *OH blockage on Pt1, accelerating the separation of H* and *OH and thus promoting spontaneous alkaline water dissociation. Thus, the supported Ptn-Pt1@Mo2C achieves a significantly lower overpotential (η10 = 24 mV) and a more than seven times higher mass activity (MA100 = 4.33 mA µg Pt⁻1) than Ptn-Pt1 in alkaline. The alkaline anion-exchange membrane water electrolyzer (AEMWE) delivers a low cell voltage of 1.91 V and durable 120 h of electrolysis at 1.0 A cm−2. This work proposes a new insight for introducing an “OH-baton” in a dual-site catalyst system to achieve spontaneous alkaline water dissociation.
AB - Nano-metal particles integrating with single-atom catalysts (NMP-SACs) have been constructed recently for accelerated alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, the design of NMP-SACs primarily aims at the separate adsorption of *OH and H*, while neglecting the *OH desorption, causing *OH blockage and slow kinetics. To address this, Mo2C is introduced to NMP-SACs (e.g., Pt nanoparticles-Pt atom, Ptn-Pt1) by a “one-step dual-confinement pyrolysis” strategy for Ptn-Pt1@Mo2C, where Pt1 precisely confined by Mo2C with Ptn remaining adjacent to Pt1@Mo2C. Experiments and calculations demonstrate that Mo2C acting as an “OH-baton” helps overcome *OH blockage on Pt1, accelerating the separation of H* and *OH and thus promoting spontaneous alkaline water dissociation. Thus, the supported Ptn-Pt1@Mo2C achieves a significantly lower overpotential (η10 = 24 mV) and a more than seven times higher mass activity (MA100 = 4.33 mA µg Pt⁻1) than Ptn-Pt1 in alkaline. The alkaline anion-exchange membrane water electrolyzer (AEMWE) delivers a low cell voltage of 1.91 V and durable 120 h of electrolysis at 1.0 A cm−2. This work proposes a new insight for introducing an “OH-baton” in a dual-site catalyst system to achieve spontaneous alkaline water dissociation.
KW - Alkaline hydrogen evolution
KW - NMP-SACs (Pt-Pt)
KW - OH-baton
KW - spontaneous HO dissociation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105006915714&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/adfm.202508638
DO - 10.1002/adfm.202508638
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105006915714
SN - 1616-301X
JO - Advanced Functional Materials
JF - Advanced Functional Materials
ER -