Interfacial engineering of POM-stabilized Ni quantum dots on porous titanium mesh for high-rate and stable alkaline hydrogen production

Meihong Liao; Huawei Shen; Xiaorui Lin; Zhengji Li; Muzi Zhu; Kefei Liu; Shuaishuai Zhou; Jingjie Dai; Yichao Huang

doi:10.1039/d3dt03917j

Interfacial engineering of POM-stabilized Ni quantum dots on porous titanium mesh for high-rate and stable alkaline hydrogen production

Dalton Trans. 2024 Mar 12;53(11):5084-5088. doi: 10.1039/d3dt03917j.

Authors

Meihong Liao¹, Huawei Shen², Xiaorui Lin¹, Zhengji Li¹, Muzi Zhu², Kefei Liu², Shuaishuai Zhou¹, Jingjie Dai¹, Yichao Huang²

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Qingdao Binhai University, Qingdao, Shandong, 266555, P. R. China. meihongliao@163.com.
² State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, Shandong, 266580, China. yichaoh@upc.edu.cn.

PMID: 38375913
DOI: 10.1039/d3dt03917j

Abstract

The development of low-cost, high-efficiency, and stable electrocatalysts for the alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a key challenge because the alkaline HER kinetics is slowed by an additional water dissociation step. Herein, we report an interfacial engineering strategy for polyoxometalate (POM)-stabilized nickel (Ni) quantum dots decorated on the surface of porous titanium mesh (POMs-Ni@PTM) for high-rate and stable alkaline hydrogen production. Benefiting from the strong interfacial interactions among POMs, Ni atoms, and PTM substrates, as well as unique POM-Ni quantum dot structures, the optimized POMs-Ni@PTM electrocatalyst exhibits a remarkable alkaline HER performance with an overpotential (η₁₀) of 30.1 mV to reach a current density of 10 mA cm^-2, which is much better than those of bare Ni decorated porous titanium mesh (Ni@PTM) (η₁₀ = 171.1 mV) and POM decorated porous titanium mesh (POMs@PTM) electrocatalysts (η₁₀ = 493.6 mV), comparable to that of the commercial 20 wt% platinum/carbon (20% Pt/C) electrocatalyst (η₁₀ = 20 mV). Moreover, the optimized POMs-Ni@PTM electrocatalyst demonstrates excellent stability under continuous alkaline water-splitting at a current density of ∼100 mA cm^-2 for 100 h, demonstrating great potential for its practical application.