N-doped hollow carbon nanospheres as platinum anchoring material for efficient hydrogen evolution

Abstract

Platinum-based materials remain as the most effective electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction. Smarter material and strategy for anchoring platinum with enhanced utilization efficiency are highly demanded. In this work, N-doped hollow carbon nanospheres are prepared targetedly from a metal-organic framework for in-situ platinum dispersion. Through a simple electrochemical method, platinum nanoparticles are successfully anchored on the surface of the carbon nanospheres decorated electrode, which exhibits exceptional HER performance in H2SO4 with low onset overpotential, small Tafel slope (33 mV decade−1), high current density (overpotentials of 40 mV to reach the current density of 10 mA cm−2) and high stability (4000 cyclic voltammetry (CV) cycles and total 30 h of high current density (10, 50 and 100 mA cm−2) chronoamperometric electrolysis). The superior electrocatalytic activity and durability can be attributed to the facilitated electron transport and synergistic effects between platinum and carbon nanospheres. This work provides an insight into the development of efficient support materials from MOFs to design efficient platinum-based electrocatalysts for future water splitting.