State Key Laboratory of Digital Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, Key Laboratory of Material Chemistry for Energy Conversion and Storage, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and §Flexible Electronics Research Center (FERC), School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan 430074, PR China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Jul 12;9(27):22604-22611. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b06075. Epub 2017 Jun 28.
Devising and facilely synthesizing an efficient noble metal-free electrocatalyst for the acceleration of the sluggish kinetics in the hydrogen-evolution reaction (HER) is still a big challenge for electrolytic water splitting. Herein, we present a simple one-step approach for constructing self-supported biocarbon-fiber cloth decorated with molybdenum carbide nanoparticles (BCF/MoC) electrodes by a direct annealing treatment of the Mo oxyanions loaded cotton T-shirt. The MoC nanoparticles not only serve as the catalytic active sites toward the HER but also enhance the hydrophilicity and conductivity of resultant electrodes. As an integrated three-dimensional HER cathode catalyst, the BCF/MoC exhibits outstanding electrocatalytic performance with extremely low overpotentials of 88 and 115 mV to drive a current density of 20 mA cm in alkaline and acidic media, respectively. In addition, it can continuously work for 50 h with little decrease in the cathodic current density in both alkaline and acidic solutions. Even better, self-supported tungsten carbide and vanadium carbide based electrodes also can be prepared by a similar synthesis process. This work will illuminate an entirely new avenue for the preparation of various self-supported three-dimensional electrodes made of transition-metal carbides for various applications.
设计并简便地合成高效的无贵金属电催化剂以加速析氢反应 (HER) 的缓慢动力学仍然是电解水分解的一个巨大挑战。在此，我们提出了一种简单的一步法，通过直接退火处理负载钼氧阴离子的棉花 T 恤来构建自支撑的碳化纤维布负载碳化钼纳米粒子 (BCF/MoC) 电极。MoC 纳米粒子不仅作为 HER 的催化活性位点，而且还增强了所得电极的亲水性和导电性。作为集成的三维 HER 阴极催化剂，BCF/MoC 表现出优异的电催化性能，在碱性和酸性介质中驱动 20 mA cm 的电流密度时，过电势分别低至 88 和 115 mV。此外，它可以在碱性和酸性溶液中连续工作 50 小时，阴极电流密度几乎没有下降。更好的是，类似的合成过程也可以制备自支撑的碳化钨和碳化钒基电极。这项工作将为制备各种用于各种应用的过渡金属碳化物自支撑三维电极开辟一条全新的途径。
