N-Doping Effects On Electrocatalytic Water Splitting of Non-Noble High-Entropy Alloy Nanoparticles Prepared by Inert Gas Condensation

Xuechun Zhou; Lvyu Zou; He Zhu; Mengyang Yan; Junjie Wang; Si Lan; Shuangqin Chen; Horst Hahn; Tao Feng

doi:10.1002/smll.202310327

N-Doping Effects On Electrocatalytic Water Splitting of Non-Noble High-Entropy Alloy Nanoparticles Prepared by Inert Gas Condensation

Small. 2023 Dec 15:e2310327. doi: 10.1002/smll.202310327. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Xuechun Zhou¹, Lvyu Zou¹, He Zhu¹, Mengyang Yan¹, Junjie Wang¹, Si Lan¹, Shuangqin Chen¹, Horst Hahn^{1

2}, Tao Feng¹

Affiliations

¹ Herbert Gleiter Institute of Nanoscience, School of Material Science and Engineering, Nanjing Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China.
² Institute of Nanotechnology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76021, Karlsruhe, Germany.

PMID: 38098433
DOI: 10.1002/smll.202310327

Abstract

The unique catalytic activities of high-entropy alloys (HEAs) emerge from the complex interaction among different elements in a single-phase solid solution. As a "green" nanofabrication technique, inert gas condensation (IGC) combined with laser source opens up a highly efficient avenue to develop HEA nanoparticles (NPs) for catalysis and energy storage. In this work, the novel N-doped non-noble HEA NPs are designed and successfully prepared by IGC. The N-doping effects of HEA NPs on oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are systematically investigated. The results show that N-doping is conducive to improving the OER, but unfavorable for HER activity. The FeCoNiCrN NPs achieve an overpotential of 269.7 mV for OER at a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 in 1.0 M KOH solution, which is among the best reported values for non-noble HEA catalysts. The effects of the differences in electronegativity, ionization energy and electron affinity energy among mixed elements in N-doped HEAs are discussed as inducing electron transfer efficiency. Combined with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and the extended X-ray absorption fine structure analysis, an element-design strategy in N-doped HEAs electrocatalysts is proposed to improve the intrinsic activity and ameliorate water splitting performance.

Keywords: electron transfer; high-entropy alloy; inert gas condensation; nanocrystalline; nitrogen doping; oxygen evolution reaction; water splitting.

Abstract

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