Efficient H2 Evolution Coupled with Anodic Oxidation of Iodide over Defective Carbon-Supported Single-Atom Mo-N4 Electrocatalyst

Tesfaye Alamirew Dessie; Wei-Hsiang Huang; Dessalew Berihun Adam; Yohannes Ayele Awoke; Chia-Hsin Wang; Jeng-Lung Chen; Chih-Wen Pao; Nigus Gabbiye Habtu; Meng-Che Tsai; Wei-Nien Su; Bing Joe Hwang

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c01229

Efficient H₂ Evolution Coupled with Anodic Oxidation of Iodide over Defective Carbon-Supported Single-Atom Mo-N₄ Electrocatalyst

Nano Lett. 2022 Sep 28;22(18):7311-7317. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c01229. Epub 2022 Sep 15.

Authors

Tesfaye Alamirew Dessie^{1

2

3}, Wei-Hsiang Huang^{4

3}, Dessalew Berihun Adam^{1

3}, Yohannes Ayele Awoke^{1

3}, Chia-Hsin Wang⁵, Jeng-Lung Chen⁵, Chih-Wen Pao⁵, Nigus Gabbiye Habtu², Meng-Che Tsai^{4

3}, Wei-Nien Su^{4

3}, Bing Joe Hwang^{1

3

5}

Affiliations

¹ NanoElectrochemistry Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan.
² Faculty of Chemical and Food Engineering, Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar 79, Ethiopia.
³ Sustainable Energy Development Center, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan.
⁴ NanoElectrochemistry Laboratory, Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan.
⁵ National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Hsin-Chu 30076, Taiwan.

PMID: 36107720
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c01229

Abstract

We successfully prepared nitrogen-doped defective carbon spheres (Mo-N₄/d-C) with a high loading of 0.996 wt % via a designed vapor-deposition process for IOR-based hydrogen generation. The synthesized Mo-N₄/d-C catalyst provides a record current density of 10 mA cm^-2 at 0.77 V. Further, the Mo-N₄/d-C catalyst shows a Tafel slope of 25.58 mV dec^-1, exceptional stability over time in acidic media, a higher hydrogen generation rate of 0.1063 mL g_cat^-1 min^-1, a high Faradaic efficiency of 99.8%, and a reduction of the energy consumption up to ∼50% for hydrogen evolution by anodic oxidation reaction of iodide (IOR) compared with the conventional OER-based electrolysis. Computational calculations demonstrate that the Mo-N₄/d-C structure plays a vital effect on the activity of iodide oxidation, which is competitive with the Pt catalyst.

Keywords: Hydrogen; IOR; Mo-N4/d-C; OER.