Issue 10, 2019

Topological metal and noncentrosymmetric superconductor α-BiPd as an efficient candidate for the hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

Due to the metal hydride, Pd-based electrodes are not an ideal electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), which is an important half-reaction of water splitting. Herein, we firstly propose to utilize topological metal and noncentrosymmetric superconductor α-BiPd in the HER process to reduce the metal hydride effect and systematically evaluate the catalyst properties by combining experimental measurements and first-principles calculations. It is demonstrated that bulk α-BiPd can be exfoliated into nanosheets with ∼5 nm thickness by liquid-phase exfoliation. The as-prepared α-BiPd nanosheets exhibit high performance with a low overpotential of 144 mV at −10 mA cm−2 and a Tafel slope of 104.0 mV dec−1, which is far superior to that of a Pd electrode. Besides, α-BiPd nanosheets show good stability over 13 h in chronoamperometry measurements. First-principles calculations also point out that ΔG is close to zero within 0.2 eV even at 0.5 ML coverage, indicating both good HER catalytic reactivity per site and large reactive surface coverage. Both experiments and theory indicate that α-BiPd nanosheets are a promising catalyst for energy conversion.

Graphical abstract: Topological metal and noncentrosymmetric superconductor α-BiPd as an efficient candidate for the hydrogen evolution reaction

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Research Article
Submitted
24 Jun 2019
Accepted
03 Sep 2019
First published
03 Sep 2019

Mater. Chem. Front., 2019,3, 2184-2189

Topological metal and noncentrosymmetric superconductor α-BiPd as an efficient candidate for the hydrogen evolution reaction

Y. He, D. Yan, L. R. Ng, L. Shi, S. Wang, H. Lin, S. Lin, H. Luo and K. Yan, Mater. Chem. Front., 2019, 3, 2184 DOI: 10.1039/C9QM00410F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements