Molecular metal–Nx centres in porous carbon for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Hai-Wei Liang, Sebastian Brüller, Renhao Dong, Jian Zhang, Xinliang Feng () and Klaus Müllen ()
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Hai-Wei Liang: Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research
Sebastian Brüller: Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research
Renhao Dong: Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research
Jian Zhang: Technische Universität Dresden
Xinliang Feng: Technische Universität Dresden
Klaus Müllen: Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Replacement of precious platinum with efficient and low-cost catalysts for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution at low overpotentials holds tremendous promise for clean energy devices. Here we report a novel type of robust cobalt–nitrogen/carbon catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) that is prepared by the pyrolysis of cobalt–N4 macrocycles or cobalt/o-phenylenediamine composites and using silica colloids as a hard template. We identify the well-dispersed molecular CoNx sites on the carbon support as the active sites responsible for the HER. The CoNx/C catalyst exhibits extremely high turnover frequencies per cobalt site in acids, for example, 0.39 and 6.5 s−1 at an overpotential of 100 and 200 mV, respectively, which are higher than those reported for other scalable non-precious metal HER catalysts. Our results suggest the great promise of developing new families of non-precious metal HER catalysts based on the controlled conversion of homogeneous metal complexes into solid-state carbon catalysts via economically scalable protocols.

Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8992

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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8992

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