COBALT/NITROGEN-DOPED CARBONS AS EFFICIENT ELECTROCATALYSTS FOR HYDROGEN EVOLUTION REACTION

摘要

Replacement of precious platinum with efficient and low-costrncatalysts for the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution from water atrnlow overpotentials holds tremendous promise for clean energy.rnInspired by the naturally occurring hydrogen evolution and uptake onrnhydrogenase enzymes, chemists have made great breakthroughs inrnrecent years on the development of bioinspired synthetic metalrncomplex HER catalysts. Unfortunately, most bioinspired catalystsrnsuffer from instability in aqueous solution and requirement of largernoverpotentials to achieve appreciable turnover frequencies (TOFs).rnPractical utilization of these synthetic molecular catalysts in fullyrnaqueous electrolytes, therefore, requires careful grafting of them ontorncarbon nanotubes by additional and complex chemical processes. Onrnthe other hand, simultaneous but largely independent efforts in solidstaternelectrocatalysis have also led to several efficient inorganicrncrystalline catalysts. Despite of their promising performance, it isrnhighly challenging to control the atomic-scale surface structure ofrnthese inorganic materials and to preferentially expose a greaterrnfraction of the active sites, e.g. the edge sites of transition-metalrndichalcogenides.