Iacono Valentina, Rabelo Helena, Lo Po' Cristiano, Pulvirenti Luca, Spadaro Maria Chiara, Arbiol Jordi, Ruffino Francesco, Mirabella Salvo
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia "Ettore Majorana", Università di Catania, via S. Sofia 64, Catania, 95123, Italy.
CNR -IMM, Catania Università, via S. Sofia 64, Catania, 95123, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2025 Aug 4;15(1):28439. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-13853-z.
Molybdenum carbides have emerged as an optimal alternative to noble expensive materials for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Most reported synthesis methods involve prolonged operations at high temperatures in reactive gases environments. In this study, we introduce nanosecond Pulsed Laser Ablation in Liquid (PLAL) as a viable and environmental friendly approach for synthesizing molybdenum carbide by ablating a molybdenum (Mo) target in ethanol. Structural and compositional characterizations on the nanoparticles (NPs) reveal no oxidation and the absence of a graphitic shell, confirming the formation of hexagonal MoC and cubic MoC. The NPs loaded on nickel foam exhibit significant HER activity in an aqueous 1 M KOH electrolyte, with a potential of 136 mV vs. RHE at 10 mA cm and 240 mV at 50 mA cm. The calculated mass activity (0.05 A/cm) highlights the high intrinsic activity of this material compared to conventional and non-green synthesis methods reported in literature.
碳化钼已成为析氢反应（HER）中替代昂贵贵金属材料的理想选择。大多数已报道的合成方法都需要在反应气体环境中高温长时间操作。在本研究中，我们引入了纳秒级液体脉冲激光烧蚀（PLAL），这是一种通过在乙醇中烧蚀钼（Mo）靶来合成碳化钼的可行且环保的方法。对纳米颗粒（NPs）的结构和成分表征表明没有氧化现象且不存在石墨壳，证实形成了六方相MoC和立方相MoC。负载在泡沫镍上的纳米颗粒在1 M KOH水溶液电解质中表现出显著的析氢活性，在10 mA/cm²时相对于可逆氢电极（RHE）的过电位为136 mV，在50 mA/cm²时为240 mV。计算得到的质量活性（0.05 A/cm²）表明，与文献中报道的传统非绿色合成方法相比，这种材料具有很高的本征活性。
