In situ electrochemical synthesis of atomically dispersed metal sites for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

The development of efficient and robust non-Pt and low-Pt catalysts with equivalent or even superior performance to commercial Pt-based catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is highly desired, but challenging, in the field of water electrolysis. Herein, we report a facile and cost-effective in situ electrochemical approach for the synthesis of atomically dispersed metal sites including platinum (Pt), ruthenium (Ru), and palladium (Pd) on the polyaniline (PANI) support. The PANI exhibits not only high electrochemical conductivity but also efficient H⁺ capture from hydronium ions, leading to the formation of protonated amine groups that can be easily electrochemically reduced to H₂ on atomically dispersed metal active sites. As an example, the atomically dispersed Pt sites anchored on carbon cloth-supported PANI (PANI-Pt/CC) demonstrate excellent activity and durability toward the HER. The mass activity of PANI-Pt-10/CC reaches 25 A mg_Pt^–1, exhibiting a significant enhancement of 50-fold compared to that of the commercial Pt/C (0.5 A mg_Pt^–1). Therefore, this study presents a universally applicable approach for the design of atomically dispersed metal sites/conducting polymer heterostructures for highly efficient catalysts toward HER and beyond.

Keywords

electrocatalyst / hydrogen evolution / in situ reduction / PANI nanofiber / single-atom catalyst

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2024 The Author(s). SusMat published by Sichuan University and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.