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Interfacial electronic interaction enabling exposed Pt(110) facets with high specific activity in hydrogen evolution reaction

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Abstract

To achieve a complete industrial chain of hydrogen energy, the development of efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is of great concerns. Herein, a nickel nitride supported platinum (Pt) catalyst with highly exposed Pt(110) facets (Pt(110)-Ni3N) is obtained for catalyzing HER. Combined X-ray spectra and density functional theory studies demonstrate that the interfacial electronic interaction between Pt and Ni3N support can promote the hydrogen evolution on Pt(110) facets by weakening hydrogen adsorption. As a result, the Pt(110)-Ni3N catalyst delivers an obviously higher specific activity than commercial 20 wt.% Pt/C in acidic media. This work suggests that the suitable interface modulation may play a vital role in rationally designing advanced electrocatalysts.

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Acknowledgements

This program was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2020YFA0405800), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Nos. U1932201, and 51902303), CAS International Partnership Program (No. 211134KYSB20190063), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Nos. BX20200322, and 2020M682009), and the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (No. 2108085QA31). We thank the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF, 14W1 and 14B1), the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (BSRF, 1W1B, 4W1B and 4B9A), the Hefei Synchrotron Radiation Facility (Infrared spectroscopy and microspectroscopy, MCD-A and MCD-B Soochow Beamline for Energy Materials, Photoemission and Catalysis/Surface Science Endstations at National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (NSRL)), and the Center for Micro and Nanoscale Research and Fabrication of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) for kind help.

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  1. Sicong Qiao, Qun He, and Quan Zhou contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Sicong Qiao, Qun He, Quan Zhou, Yuzhu Zhou, Wenjie Xu, Hongwei Shou, Yuyang Cao, Shuangming Chen & Li Song

  2. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation of Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), School of Chemistry and Materials Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Xiaojun Wu

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  1. Sicong Qiao
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Correspondence to Li Song.

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Interfacial electronic interaction enabling exposed Pt(110) facets with high specific activity in hydrogen evolution reaction

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Qiao, S., He, Q., Zhou, Q. et al. Interfacial electronic interaction enabling exposed Pt(110) facets with high specific activity in hydrogen evolution reaction. Nano Res. 16, 174–180 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4654-2

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