Engineered stable electron-doping water with higher chemical activity catalyzes itself in hydrogen evolution reactions

Abstract

Additional huge amount of energy is required for water splitting due to strong surrounding hydrogen bonds (HBs) between water molecules. However, this underappreciated fact has not attracted the attention of scientists to shift to the research direction to the reactant water itself in hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs). In this work, we report a facile cold water-cooling method to prepare distilled water (DIW-V) with distinct structures of electron-doping and reduced HBs. Compared to bulk deionized water (DIW) which was used to prepare DIW-V, the resulting stable DIW-V exhibited distinct properties at room temperature. Examples are its ability to scavenge 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl free radicals and to passivate oxidants of H2O2 through utilizing its novel electron-doping structure. Also, typical electrochemical reactions performed in DIW-V were more efficient, and stronger intermolecular HBs between alcohols and DIW-V were exhibited due to its novel reduced HBs. Moreover, HERs performed on both catalytic and inert electrodes at various pH values were all more efficient when utilizing DIW-V. Experiments regarding density measurements of alcohol solutions and HER performances indicated that stabilities of the activities of DIW-V were acceptable. DIW-V was also available for more efficient oxygen evolution reaction utilizing catalytic Pt electrode in favorable alkaline solution. Our proposed DIW-V has emerged as a promising green and active reactant applicable to more-effective HERs and water-related sciences.