Open AccessBoosting hydrogen production with ultralow working voltage by selenium vacancy‐enhanced ultrafine platinum–nickel nanowires
Author(s) -
Jin Yu,
Zhang Zhe,
Yang Hao,
Wang Pengtang,
Shen Chenqi,
Cheng Tao,
Huang Xiaoqing,
Shao Qi
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
smartmat
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2688-819X
DOI - 10.1002/smm2.1083
Subject(s) - overpotential , bifunctional , nanowire , platinum , catalysis , hydrogen production , nickel , materials science , electrolysis , bifunctional catalyst , chemical engineering , hydrogen , nanotechnology , inorganic chemistry , electrochemistry , chemistry , electrolyte , metallurgy , electrode , organic chemistry , engineering
Defect engineering provides a highly potential way to yield exceptional catalytic performance. Herein, we first report the selenium (Se) vacancies‐decorated ultrafine platinum–nickel (PtNi‐Se v ) nanowires, as a bifunctional catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). The optimized PtNi‐Se v exhibits obvious enhancement for HER and MOR compared to PtNi nanowires. It displays merely an overpotential of 18.8 mV for alkaline HER and the outstanding MOR performance (3.51 A/mg Pt ). When applying in one symmetric overall water splitting electrolyzer coupling with HER and MOR, an ultralow working voltage of 0.637 V with 100% Faraday efficiency for hydrogen production was achieved at the current density of 10 mA/cm 2 . Further investigations reveal that the weakened hydrogen binding energy, strong OH binding as well as relative weak CO binding are responsible for the improved HER and MOR activities.