In-plane strain engineering in ultrathin noble metal nanosheets boosts the intrinsic electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity

Geng Wu; Xiao Han; Jinyan Cai; Peiqun Yin; Peixin Cui; Xusheng Zheng; Hai Li; Cai Chen; Gongming Wang; Xun Hong

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-31971-4

In-plane strain engineering in ultrathin noble metal nanosheets boosts the intrinsic electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity

Nat Commun. 2022 Jul 20;13(1):4200. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-31971-4.

Authors

Geng Wu^#¹, Xiao Han^#¹, Jinyan Cai^#¹, Peiqun Yin¹, Peixin Cui², Xusheng Zheng³, Hai Li⁴, Cai Chen¹, Gongming Wang⁵, Xun Hong⁶

Affiliations

¹ Center of Advanced Nanocatalysis (CAN), Department of Applied Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, P.R. China.
² Key Laboratory of Soil Environment and Pollution Remediation, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210008, P.R. China.
³ National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (NSRL), University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230029, P.R. China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLOFE) & Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing Technology University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 211816, P.R. China.
⁵ Center of Advanced Nanocatalysis (CAN), Department of Applied Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, P.R. China. wanggm@ustc.edu.cn.
⁶ Center of Advanced Nanocatalysis (CAN), Department of Applied Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, P.R. China. hongxun@ustc.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Strain has been shown to modulate the electronic structure of noble metal nanomaterials and alter their catalytic performances. Since strain is spatially dependent, it is challenging to expose the active strained interfaces by structural engineering with atomic precision. Herein, we report a facile method to manipulate the planar strain in ultrathin noble metal nanosheets by constructing amorphous-crystalline phase boundaries that can expose the active strained interfaces. Geometric-phase analysis and electron diffraction profile demonstrate the in-plane amorphous-crystalline boundaries can induce about 4% surface tensile strain in the nanosheets. The strained Ir nanosheets display substantially enhanced intrinsic activity toward the hydrogen evolution reaction electrocatalysis with a turnover frequency value 4.5-fold higher than the benchmark Pt/C catalyst. Density functional theory calculations verify that the tensile strain optimizes the d-band states and hydrogen adsorption properties of the strained Ir nanosheets to improve catalysis. Furthermore, the in-plane strain engineering method is demonstrated to be a general approach to boost the hydrogen evolution performance of Ru and Rh nanosheets.