Design of nickel nanocrystals embedded in nitrogen-doped carbon toward high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction

• Published in: Journal of materials science. Materials in electronics 2023-02, Vol.34 (6), p.482, Article 482
• Main Authors: Zhu, Dequan, Cai, Le, Sun, Xinpeng, Ding, Lei, You, Jiancun, Zhu, Zusong, Huang, Xiaoxiao, Zheng, Fangcai
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbon; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Electrocatalysts; Electrodes; Electrolytes; Hydrogen; Hydrogen evolution reactions; Hydrogen production; Materials Science; Nanocrystals; Nickel; Nitrogen; Noble metals; Optical and Electronic Materials; Reaction intermediates; Scanning electron microscopy; Spectrum analysis; Transmission electron microscopy; Water splitting
• ISSN: 0957-4522; 1573-482X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10854-022-09487-w

Electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution from water-splitting is an environmentally friendly strategy for hydrogen production. However, the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) rate is sluggish, which always needs the expensive noble metal electrocatalysts to decrease the energy barrier of water-splitting. Herein, we design a cost-efficient non-noble metal electrocatalyst with nickel nanocrystals embedded in nitrogen-doped carbon (Ni@NC) to accelerate the HER kinetics. With much more exposed Ni active sites for adsorbing the reaction intermediates and enhanced electronic conductivity, the resulting Ni@NC achieves a low potential of 236 mV at 10 mA cm − 2 in the alkaline electrolyte. This work will open the way to design high-performance non-noble metal electrocatalysts for the HER.