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Simple and Scalable Mechanochemical Synthesis of Noble Metal Catalysts with Single Atoms toward Highly Efficient Hydrogen Evolution
Author(s) -
Jin Haiyan,
Sultan Siraj,
Ha Miran,
Tiwari Jitendra N.,
Kim Min Gyu,
Kim Kwang S.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
advanced functional materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.069
H-Index - 322
eISSN - 1616-3028
pISSN - 1616-301X
DOI - 10.1002/adfm.202000531
Subject(s) - overpotential , materials science , catalysis , noble metal , atom (system on chip) , ball mill , hydrogen , nanotechnology , electrochemistry , metal , rhodium , chemical engineering , chemistry , metallurgy , organic chemistry , computer science , engineering , electrode , embedded system
Designing a facile strategy to access active and atomically dispersed metallic catalysts are highly challenging for single atom catalysts (SACs). Herein, a simple and fast approach is demonstrated to construct Pt catalysts with single atoms in large quantity via ball milling Pt precursor and N‐doped carbon support (K 2 PtCl 4 @NC‐M; M denotes ball‐milling). The as‐prepared K 2 PtCl 4 @NC‐M only requires a low overpotential of 11 mV and exhibits 17‐fold enhanced mass activity for the electrochemical hydrogen evolution compared to commercial 20 wt% Pt/C. The superior hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalytic activity of K 2 PtCl 4 @NC‐M can be attributed to the generation of Pt single atoms, which improves the utilization efficiency of Pt atoms and the introduction of Pt‐N 2 C 2 active sites with near‐zero hydrogen adsorption energy. This viable ball milling method is found to be universally applicable to the fabrication of other single metal atoms, for example, rhodium and ruthenium (such as Mt‐N 2 C 2 , where Mt denotes single metal atom). This strategy also provides a promising and practical avenue toward large‐scale energy storage and conversion application.