Nanotip-Induced Electric Field for Hydrogen Catalysis

Fei Xue; Chunyang Zhang; Hao Peng; Feng Liu; Xueli Yan; Qing Yao; Zhiwei Hu; Ting-Shan Chan; Maochang Liu; Juntao Zhang; Yong Xu; Xiaoqing Huang

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c03845

Nanotip-Induced Electric Field for Hydrogen Catalysis

Nano Lett. 2023 Dec 27;23(24):11827-11834. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c03845. Epub 2023 Dec 11.

Authors

Fei Xue¹, Chunyang Zhang², Hao Peng², Feng Liu², Xueli Yan², Qing Yao¹, Zhiwei Hu³, Ting-Shan Chan⁴, Maochang Liu², Juntao Zhang^{1

5}, Yong Xu⁶, Xiaoqing Huang^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
² International Research Center for Renewable Energy, State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
³ Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nothnitzer Strasse 40, Dresden 01187, Germany.
⁴ National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, 101 Hsin-Ann Road, Hsinchu 30076, Taiwan.
⁵ Innovation Laboratory for Sciences and Technologies of Energy Materials of Fujian Province (IKKEM), Xiamen 361005, China.
⁶ Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Materials and Energy Storage Devices, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Energy Materials, School of Materials and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.

PMID: 38079388
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c03845

Abstract

Local electric field induced by the lightning-rod effect attracts great attention for regulating the local microenvironment and electronic properties of active sites. Nevertheless, local electric-field-assisted applications are mainly limited to metals with strong surface plasmonic resonance properties (e.g., Au, Ag, and Cu). Herein, we fabricate RuCu snow-like nanosheets (SNSs) with high-curvature nanotips for enhancing the hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Theoretical simulations show that RuCu SNSs can induce a strong local electric field around the sharp nanotips, which favors the accumulation of OH^- for HOR and H⁺ for HER. Cu incorporation can modulate the binding strength of OH* and H*, leading to significantly enhanced HOR and HER performance. Impressively, the mass activity of RuCu SNSs for alkaline HOR is 31.3 times higher than that of RuCu nanocrystals without sharp tips. Besides, the required overpotential for reaching 10 mA cm^-2 during HER over RuCu SNSs is 14.0 mV.

Keywords: RuCu snow-like nanosheets; bifunctional hydrogen catalysis; finite element simulations; local electric field; tip effect.