Charge Engineering of Mo2C@Defect-Rich N-Doped Carbon Nanosheets for Efficient Electrocatalytic H2 Evolution

Chunsheng Lei; Wen Zhou; Qingguo Feng; Yongpeng Lei; Yi Zhang; Yin Chen; Jiaqian Qin

doi:10.1007/s40820-019-0279-8

Charge Engineering of Mo₂C@Defect-Rich N-Doped Carbon Nanosheets for Efficient Electrocatalytic H₂ Evolution

Nanomicro Lett. 2019 Jun 1;11(1):45. doi: 10.1007/s40820-019-0279-8.

Authors

Chunsheng Lei^#^{1

2}, Wen Zhou^#^{1

2}, Qingguo Feng^#³, Yongpeng Lei^{4

5}, Yi Zhang⁶, Yin Chen⁶, Jiaqian Qin⁷

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, People's Republic of China.
² College of Environmental and Safety Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou, 213164, People's Republic of China.
³ Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials, Ministry of Education, and Institute of Materials Dynamics, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, Sichuan, People's Republic of China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, People's Republic of China. lypkd@163.com.
⁵ Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Power Sources, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, People's Republic of China. lypkd@163.com.
⁶ Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Power Sources, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, People's Republic of China.
⁷ Metallurgy and Materials Science Research Institute, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Charge engineering of carbon materials with many defects shows great potential in electrocatalysis, and molybdenum carbide (Mo₂C) is one of the noble-metal-free electrocatalysts with the most potential. Herein, we study the Mo₂C on pyridinic nitrogen-doped defective carbon sheets (MoNCs) as catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction. Theoretical calculations imply that the introduction of Mo₂C produces a graphene wave structure, which in some senses behaves like N doping to form localized charges. Being an active electrocatalyst, MoNCs demonstrate a Tafel slope as low as 60.6 mV dec^-1 and high durability of up to 10 h in acidic media. Besides charge engineering, plentiful defects and hierarchical morphology also contribute to good performance. This work underlines the importance of charge engineering to boost catalytic performance.

Keywords: Charge engineering; Graphene wave; Hydrogen evolution reaction; Molybdenum carbide; Nitrogen-doped carbon nanosheets.