Nanoporous Silver Telluride for Active Hydrogen Evolution

• Published in: ACS nano 2021-04, Vol.15 (4), p.6540-6550
• Main Authors: Kwon, Hagyeong, Bae, Dongyeon, Won, Dongyeun, Kim, Heeju, Kim, Gunn, Cho, Jiung, Park, Hee Jung, Baik, Hionsuck, Jeong, Ah Reum, Lin, Chia-Hsien, Chiang, Ching-Yu, Ku, Ching-Shun, Yang, Heejun, Cho, Suyeon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c09517

Silver-based nanomaterials have been versatile building blocks of various photoassisted energy applications; however, they have demonstrated poor electrochemical catalytic performance and stability, in particular, in acidic environments. Here we report a stable and high-performance electrochemical catalyst of silver telluride (AgTe) for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), which was synthesized with a nanoporous structure by an electrochemical synthesis method. X-ray spectroscopy techniques on the nanometer scale and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy revealed an orthorhombic structure of nanoporous AgTe with precise lattice constants. First-principles calculations show that the AgTe surface possesses highly active catalytic sites for the HER with an optimized Gibbs free energy change of hydrogen adsorption (−0.005 eV). Our nanoporous AgTe demonstrates exceptional stability and performance for the HER, an overpotential of 27 mV, and a Tafel slope of 33 mV/dec. As a stable catalyst for hydrogen production, AgTe is comparable to platinum-based catalysts and provides a breakthrough for high-performance electrochemical catalysts.