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Nano Research 2022, 15(9): 7917-7924 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4448-6
Research Article | Issue | Published: 31 May 2022

Metal-organic framework-derived Co nanoparticles and single atoms as efficient electrocatalyst for pH universal hydrogen evolution reaction

Show Author's Information Rui jiang1,§,  Qian Li1,§,  Xue Zheng1,  Weizhe Wang1,  Shuangbao Wang1,  Zhimou Xu1( ),  Jiabin Wu2( )
School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074, China
Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

§ Rui jiang and Qian Li contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
metal-organic frameworks, hydrogen evolution reaction, nanocatalysts, single atoms, pH universal
Topics:
Hydrogen evolution reaction
Cite this article:
jiang R, Li Q, Zheng X, et al. Metal-organic framework-derived Co nanoparticles and single atoms as efficient electrocatalyst for pH universal hydrogen evolution reaction. Nano Research, 2022, 15(9): 7917-7924. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4448-6
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Hydrogen release through water splitting is essential for reducing carbon emissions and promoting the hydrogen economy. One of the crucial challenges for industrial applications of water electrolysis is the manufacture of electrocatalysts which can reduce the kinetic energy barrier of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Loading transition metal (TM) nanoparticles (NPs) or single atoms (SAs) into heteroatom-doped carbon materials (HCMs) is an effective method to improve electrochemical activity and stability. To this end, we synthesized N-doped porous carbon (NC) encapsulated Co NPs and isolated Co SA nanocatalysts (denoted as Co NPs@SAs-NC) using metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as sacrificial precursors. The Co NPs@SAs-NC nanocatalysts displayed outstanding HER activity with a 110 mV overpotential in 1 M KOH, 47 mV overpotential in 0.5 M H2SO4 and 171 mV in 0.5 M phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) to reach a current density of 10 mA·cm−2. In addition, the mechanism of the synergistic effect of Co NPs, Co SAs and N species was investigated in-depth using in situ shielding experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Metal-organic framework-derived Co nanoparticles and single atoms as efficient electrocatalyst for pH universal hydrogen evolution reaction

Show Author's information Rui jiang1,§, Qian Li1,§, Xue Zheng1, Weizhe Wang1, Shuangbao Wang1, Zhimou Xu1( ), Jiabin Wu2( )
School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074, China
Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

§ Rui jiang and Qian Li contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Hydrogen release through water splitting is essential for reducing carbon emissions and promoting the hydrogen economy. One of the crucial challenges for industrial applications of water electrolysis is the manufacture of electrocatalysts which can reduce the kinetic energy barrier of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Loading transition metal (TM) nanoparticles (NPs) or single atoms (SAs) into heteroatom-doped carbon materials (HCMs) is an effective method to improve electrochemical activity and stability. To this end, we synthesized N-doped porous carbon (NC) encapsulated Co NPs and isolated Co SA nanocatalysts (denoted as Co NPs@SAs-NC) using metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as sacrificial precursors. The Co NPs@SAs-NC nanocatalysts displayed outstanding HER activity with a 110 mV overpotential in 1 M KOH, 47 mV overpotential in 0.5 M H2SO4 and 171 mV in 0.5 M phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) to reach a current density of 10 mA·cm−2. In addition, the mechanism of the synergistic effect of Co NPs, Co SAs and N species was investigated in-depth using in situ shielding experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations.

Keywords: metal-organic frameworks, hydrogen evolution reaction, nanocatalysts, single atoms, pH universal

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 26 February 2022
Revised: 14 April 2022
Accepted: 20 April 2022
Published: 31 May 2022
Issue date: September 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2022

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFB0403401). The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Nos. 2021M691759, and 2021TQ0169). This work was supported by Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. 2224103). We thank the BL11B station at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility and the 1W1B and 4B7A stations at the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility.

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