Kinetics of Hydrogen Evolution Reactions in Acidic Media on Pt, Pd, and MoS2

Langmuir. 2022 Apr 12;38(14):4341-4350. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c00090. Epub 2022 Apr 1.

Abstract

Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are investigated on Pt, Pd, and MoS2 in a 0.5 M H2SO4 electrolyte in a rotating disk electrode (RDE) configuration in the temperature range of 285-335 K. The reaction is temperature-sensitive on all of the three catalyst surfaces at their respective overpotential ranges. The kinetic parameters (activation enthalpy (ΔH#), free energy of activation (ΔG#), and pre-exponential factor (Af)) toward HER are obtained from the Arrhenius and Eyring relations, and the overall kinetics on the catalyst surfaces is analyzed. ΔH# for HER is a strong function of the overpotential in the case of both Pt and Pd. On the other hand, the trend in Af suggests that the electrocatalysis of HER on MoS2 originates from an increase in entropy factor, perhaps due to the solvent-dipole interaction at the interface. Such analysis is pivotal to the investigation of electrocatalysis of HER, especially on surfaces for which determination of active-site density is not established.