A review of enhanced electrocatalytic composites hydrogen/oxygen evolution based on quantum dot

Abstract

Hydrogen energy is the most promising renewable energy, and electrocatalytic water splitting to hydrogen production is an efficient and environmentally friendly way. More importantly, a high-efficiency catalyst for both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are urgently needed. The low cost, large specific surface area, high electrical conductivity and abundant surface functional groups, zero-dimensional quantum dots have emerged, such as Carbon quantum dots (CQDs)/Graphene quantum dots (GQDs), Black phosphorus quantum dots (BPQDs), MXene-derived quantum dots (MXQDs). The catalytic performance of traditional transition metal-based electrocatalytic is not good enough, and the introduction of quantum dots increases the electrical conductivity, energy conversion efficiency and a large number of catalytic active sites of the composites, which significantly improves the electrocatalytic performance of the composites. Fast charge transfer rate and large specific surface area make quantum dots become functional materials for electrocatalytic energy conversion, and rich functional groups can provide rich binding sites and active sites for multi-component composites. Furthermore, quantum dot-based composites with excellent comprehensive properties have broad application prospects and can be applied to advanced fields such as fuel cells and supercapacitors related to energy storage and conversion.