Center for Electron Microscopy and Tianjin Key Lab of Advanced Functional Porous Materials, Institute for New Energy Materials & Low-Carbon Technologies, School of Materials, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, China.
Key Laboratory of Display Materials and Photoelectric Devices (Ministry of Education), Tianjin Key Laboratory for Photoelectric Materials and Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, China.
Small. 2022 Dec;18(52):e2204524. doi: 10.1002/smll.202204524. Epub 2022 Oct 26.
With the development of renewable energy systems, clean hydrogen is burgeoning as an optimal alternative to fossil fuels, in which its application is promising to retarding the global energy and environmental crisis. The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), capable of producing high-purity hydrogen rapidly in electrocatalytic water splitting, has received much attention. Abundant research about HER has been done, focusing on advanced electrocatalyst design with high efficiency and robust stability. As potential HER catalysts, metal nanoclusters (MNCs) have been studied extensively. They are composed of several to a hundred metal atoms, with sizes being comparable to the Fermi wavelength of electrons, that is, < 2.0 nm. Different from metal atoms/nanoparticles, they exhibit unique catalytic properties due to their quantum size effect and low-coordination environment. In this review, the activity-enhancing approaches of MNCs applied in HER electrocatalysis are mainly summarized. Furthermore, recent progress in MNCs classified with different stabilization strategies, that is, the freestanding MNCs, MNCs with organic, metal and carbon supports, are introduced. Finally, the current challenges and deficiencies of these MNCs for HER are prospected.
随着可再生能源系统的发展，清洁氢气作为化石燃料的理想替代品而蓬勃发展，其在延缓全球能源和环境危机方面具有广阔的应用前景。析氢反应（HER）能够在电催化水中快速产生高纯度氢气，因此受到了广泛关注。大量关于 HER 的研究都集中在高效和稳定的先进电催化剂设计上。作为潜在的 HER 催化剂，金属纳米团簇（MNCs）已经得到了广泛的研究。它们由几个到几百个金属原子组成，尺寸与电子的费米波长相当，即 < 2.0nm。与金属原子/纳米颗粒不同，由于其量子尺寸效应和低配位环境，它们表现出独特的催化性能。本综述主要总结了应用于 HER 电催化的 MNCs 的活性增强方法。此外，还介绍了按不同稳定策略分类的 MNCs 的最新进展，即游离 MNCs、具有有机、金属和碳载体的 MNCs。最后，对这些 MNCs 在 HER 中的当前挑战和不足进行了展望。
