Metallic W/WO2 solid-acid catalyst boosts hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline electrolyte

Abstract The lack of available protons severely lowers the activity of alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction process than that in acids, which can be efficiently accelerated by tuning the coverage and chemical environment of protons on catalyst surface. However, the cycling of active sites by proton transfer is largely dependent on the utilization of noble metal catalysts because of the appealing electronic interaction between noble metal atoms and protons. Herein, an all-non-noble W/WO 2 metallic heterostructure serving as an efficient solid-acid catalyst exhibits remarkable hydrogen evolution reaction performance with an ultra-low overpotential of −35 mV at −10 mA/cm 2 and a small Tafel slope (−34 mV/dec), as…

• SS
  Salt Science Research Foundation

  Award: BL11B
• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: BL11B, 12004324, 22172190, 22109171
• CA
  Chinese Academy of Sciences

  Awards: YSBR-022, JCTD-2021-14
• NS
  National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory

  Award: BL11U
• SI
  Suzhou Institute of Nanotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences