Ultrafine Co-MoC particles in porous carbon derived from polyoxometalate-based metal organic framework for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

Changle Yue; Wenjing Bao; Yang Liu; Xinyi Chao; Na Liu; Haoyuan Hao; Fengyue Sun; Cong Zhang; Dengwei Yan; Jiahui Bi; Yukun Lu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2024.04.042

Ultrafine Co-MoC particles in porous carbon derived from polyoxometalate-based metal organic framework for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Apr 13:667:184-191. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.04.042. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Changle Yue¹, Wenjing Bao¹, Yang Liu¹, Xinyi Chao¹, Na Liu¹, Haoyuan Hao¹, Fengyue Sun¹, Cong Zhang¹, Dengwei Yan¹, Jiahui Bi¹, Yukun Lu²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, PR China.
² State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, PR China. Electronic address: lyk@upc.edu.cn.

PMID: 38636220
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.04.042

Abstract

Accurately regulating ultrafine molybdenum carbide (MoC)-based catalysts is a significant challenge in the rational design of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts. Herein, under the guidance of the first principle calculations, we proposed an in-situ polyoxometalate-confined strategy for creating uniformly distributed ultrafine Co-MoC bimetallic nanoparticles in porous carbon nanostars, with the assistance of precisely designed metal-organic framework (MOF). The Co-MoC@C electrocatalyst has a high specific surface area of 969 m²·g^-1 because of the conductive carbon substrate with abundant mesopores, which makes for exposing more active sites of Co-MoC nanocrystals (∼1.5 nm) and facilitating electron/ion transport. Thus, Co-MoC@C electrocatalyst shows the excellent electrochemical activity with overpotentials of 88.4 mV and 66.6 mV at a current density of 10 mA·cm^-2 under acidic and alkaline conditions, respectively. The in-situ polyoxometalate-confined strategy will provide a new guideline for the design and preparation of efficient HER electrocatalysts.

Keywords: Co-doped MoC; Electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution; Ligand confined; Metal-organic framework; Polyoxometalates.