Stable Pd-Cu Hydride Catalyst for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution

Yanyan Jia; Tzu-Hsi Huang; Shuan Lin; Lisheng Guo; Yu-Min Yu; Jeng-Han Wang; Kuan-Wen Wang; Sheng Dai

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04840

Stable Pd-Cu Hydride Catalyst for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution

Nano Lett. 2022 Feb 9;22(3):1391-1397. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04840. Epub 2022 Jan 26.

Authors

Yanyan Jia¹, Tzu-Hsi Huang², Shuan Lin², Lisheng Guo¹, Yu-Min Yu², Jeng-Han Wang³, Kuan-Wen Wang^{2

4}, Sheng Dai¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Joint International Research Laboratory of Precision Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Feringa Nobel Prize Scientist Joint Research Centre, Frontiers Science Center for Materiobiology and Dynamic Chemistry, Institute of Fine Chemicals, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science & Technology, Shanghai 200237, China.
² Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, National Central University, Taoyuan 320, Taiwan.
³ Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 116, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan.

PMID: 35080392
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04840

Abstract

Pd has been regarded as one of the alternatives to Pt as a promising hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst. Strategies including Pd-metal alloys (Pd-M) and Pd hydrides (PdH_x) have been proposed to boost HER performances. However, the stability issues, e.g., the dissolution in Pd-M and the hydrogen releasing in PdH_x, restrict the industrial application of Pd-based HER catalysts. We here design and synthesize a stable Pd-Cu hydride (PdCu_0.2H_0.43) catalyst, combining the advantages of both Pd-M and PdH_x structures and improving the HER durability simultaneously. The hydrogen intercalation is realized under atmospheric pressure (1.0 atm) following our synthetic approach that imparts high stability to the Pd-Cu hydride structure. The obtained PdCu_0.2H_0.43 catalyst exhibits a small overpotential of 28 mV at 10 mA/cm², a low Tafel slope of 23 mV/dec, and excellent HER durability due to its appropriate hydrogen adsorption free energy and alleviated metal dissolution rate.

Keywords: Pd-based catalysts; Pd−Cu hydrides; electrocatalysis; hydrogen adsorption free energy; hydrogen evolution reaction.