A rhodium/silicon co-electrocatalyst design concept to surpass platinum hydrogen evolution activity at high overpotentials

Currently, platinum-based electrocatalysts show the best performance for hydrogen evolution. All hydrogen evolution reaction catalysts should however obey Sabatier’s principle, that is, the adsorption energy of hydrogen to the catalyst surface should be neither too high nor too low to balance betwee...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2016-07, Vol.7 (1), p.12272-12272, Article 12272
Main Authors: Zhu, Lili, Lin, Haiping, Li, Youyong, Liao, Fan, Lifshitz, Yeshayahu, Sheng, Minqi, Lee, Shuit-Tong, Shao, Mingwang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/638/263
639/638/77/884
639/638/77/886
Adsorption
Electrodes
Energy
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hydrogen
Metals
multidisciplinary
Nanoparticles
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Silicon
Spectrum analysis
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Summary:Currently, platinum-based electrocatalysts show the best performance for hydrogen evolution. All hydrogen evolution reaction catalysts should however obey Sabatier’s principle, that is, the adsorption energy of hydrogen to the catalyst surface should be neither too high nor too low to balance between hydrogen adsorption and desorption. To overcome the limitation of this principle, here we choose a composite (rhodium/silicon nanowire) catalyst, in which hydrogen adsorption occurs on rhodium with a large adsorption energy while hydrogen evolution occurs on silicon with a small adsorption energy. We show that the composite is stable with better hydrogen evolution activity than rhodium nanoparticles and even exceeding those of commercial platinum/carbon at high overpotentials. The results reveal that silicon plays a key role in the electrocatalysis. This work may thus open the door for the design and fabrication of electrocatalysts for high-efficiency electric energy to hydrogen energy conversion. Design of hydrogen evolution catalysts needs to balance the hydrogen adsorption energy to facilitate easy adsorption and desorption. Here, the authors report a composite catalyst where hydrogen adsorption occurs on rhodium and desorbs from silicon which has a lower adsorption energy.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/ncomms12272