Active sites implanted carbon cages in core-shell architecture: Highly active and durable electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

Huabin Zhang, Zuju Ma, Jingjing Duan, Huimin Liu, Guigao Liu, Tao Wang, Kun Chang, Mu Li, Li Shi, Xianguang Meng, Kechen Wu, Jinhua Ye

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

433 Scopus citations

Abstract

Low efficiency and poor stability are two major challenges we encounter in the exploration of non-noble metal electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in both acidic and alkaline environment. Herein, the hybrid of cobalt encapsulated by N, B codoped ultrathin carbon cages (Co@BCN) is first introduced as a highly active and durable nonprecious metal electrocatalysts for HER, which is constructed by a bottom-up approach using metal organic frameworks (MOFs) as precursor and self-sacrificing template. The optimized catalyst exhibited remarkable electrocatalytic performance for hydrogen production from both both acidic and alkaline media. Stability investigation reveals the overcoating of carbon cages can effectively avoid the corrosion and oxidation of the catalyst under extreme acidic and alkaline environment. Electrochemical active surface area (EASA) evaluation and density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed that the synergetic effect between the encapsulated cobalt nanoparticle and the N, B codoped carbon shell played the fundamental role in the superior HER catalytic performance.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)684-694
Number of pages11
JournalACS Nano
Volume10
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 26 2016
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • General Materials Science
  • General Engineering

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