Self-supporting Atmosphere-Assisted Synthesis of 1D Mo₂ C-based Catalyst for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution

One-dimensional materials exhibit fascinating properties in electrocatalytic applications but their fabrication faces the challenge of tedious and complicated operations. We have developed a bottom-up strategy to construct a 1D metal carbide catalyst (Mo₂ C@NC) consisting of ultrafine Mo₂ C nanoparticles embedded within nitrogen-doped carbon layers by simply calcining a mixture of ammonium molybdate, urea and melamine. Experimental results and thermodynamic calculations demonstrate that the retainable pyrolysis-generated self-supporting atmosphere plays a crucial role in the crystalline phase and morphology of materials. When functioned as an electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the achieved Mo₂ C@NC presents an excellent catalytic activity as well as outstanding stability. This work could shed fresh light onto the facile synthesis of effective HER catalysts with 1D nanostructure.