Maximizing the Synergistic Effect of CoNi Catalyst on α-MoC for Robust Hydrogen Production

Yuzhen Ge; Xuetao Qin; Aowen Li; Yuchen Deng; Lili Lin; Mengtao Zhang; Qiaolin Yu; Siwei Li; Mi Peng; Yao Xu; Xueyao Zhao; Mingquan Xu; Wu Zhou; Siyu Yao; Ding Ma

doi:10.1021/jacs.0c11285

Maximizing the Synergistic Effect of CoNi Catalyst on α-MoC for Robust Hydrogen Production

J Am Chem Soc. 2021 Jan 20;143(2):628-633. doi: 10.1021/jacs.0c11285. Epub 2020 Dec 31.

Authors

Yuzhen Ge¹, Xuetao Qin¹, Aowen Li², Yuchen Deng¹, Lili Lin¹, Mengtao Zhang¹, Qiaolin Yu¹, Siwei Li¹, Mi Peng¹, Yao Xu¹, Xueyao Zhao¹, Mingquan Xu², Wu Zhou^{2

3}, Siyu Yao⁴, Ding Ma¹

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, College of Engineering and BIC-ESAT, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
² School of Physical Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Vacuum Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ CAS Center for Excellence in Topological Quantum Computation, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.

PMID: 33382262
DOI: 10.1021/jacs.0c11285

Abstract

We report the syntheses of highly dispersed CoNi bimetallic catalysts on the surface of α-MoC based on the strong metal support interaction (SMSI) effect. The interaction between the nearly atomically dispersed Co and Ni atoms was observed for the first time by the real-space chemical mapping at the atomic level. Combined with the ability of α-MoC to split water at low temperatures, the as-synthesized CoNi/α-MoC catalysts exhibited robust and synergistic performance for the hydrogen production from hydrolysis of ammonia borane. The metal-normalized activity of the bimetallic 1.5Co1.5Ni/α-MoC catalyst reached 321.1 mol_H2·mol^-1_CoNi·min^-1 at 298 K, which surpasses all the noble metal-free catalysts ever reported and is four times higher than that of the commercial Pt/C catalyst.