Surface-Engineered PtNi-O Nanostructure with Record-High Performance for Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Zipeng Zhao; Haotian Liu; Wenpei Gao; Wang Xue; Zeyan Liu; Jin Huang; Xiaoqing Pan; Yu Huang

doi:10.1021/jacs.8b04770

Surface-Engineered PtNi-O Nanostructure with Record-High Performance for Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

J Am Chem Soc. 2018 Jul 25;140(29):9046-9050. doi: 10.1021/jacs.8b04770. Epub 2018 Jul 16.

Authors

Zipeng Zhao¹, Haotian Liu¹, Wenpei Gao², Wang Xue^{1

3}, Zeyan Liu¹, Jin Huang¹, Xiaoqing Pan^{2

4}, Yu Huang^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering , University of California-Los Angeles , Los Angeles , California 90095 , United States.
² Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science , University of California-Irvine , Irvine , California 92697 , United States.
³ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry , University of California-Los Angeles , Los Angeles , California 90095 , United States.
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy , University of California-Irvine , Irvine , California 92697 , United States.
⁵ California NanoSystems Institute , University of California-Los Angeles , Los Angeles , California 90095 , United States.

PMID: 29983055
DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b04770

Abstract

Hydrogen holds the potential of replacing nonrenewable fossil fuel. Improving the efficiency of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is critical for environmental friendly hydrogen generation through electrochemical or photoelectrochemical water splitting. Here we report the surface-engineered PtNi-O nanoparticles with enriched NiO/PtNi interface on surface. Notably, PtNi-O/C showed a mass activity of 7.23 mA/μg at an overpotential of 70 mV, which is 7.9 times higher compared to that of the commercial Pt/C, representing the highest reported mass activity for HER in alkaline conditions. The HER overpotential can be lowered to 39.8 mV at 10 mA/cm² when platinum loading was only 5.1 μg_pt/cm², showing exceptional HER efficiency. Meanwhile, the prepared PtNi-O/C nanostructures demonstrated significantly improved stability as well as high current performance which are well over those of the commercial Pt/C and demonstrated capability of scaled hydrogen generation.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.