Ultra-small hollow ternary alloy nanoparticles for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrochemistry
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Hollow nanoparticles offer high surface area and atom utilization, ideal for catalysis.
• The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is crucial for clean energy production.
• Developing cost-effective and highly active HER catalysts remains a challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and synthesize ultra-small hollow ternary alloy nanostructures for HER.
• To investigate the catalytic performance and stability of these novel nanomaterials.
• To understand the underlying mechanisms for their enhanced electrocatalytic activity.

Main Methods:

• A facile one-pot synthesis strategy was employed.
• Displacement reactions and oxidative etching were utilized for hollow structure formation.
• Electrochemical measurements and density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed.

Main Results:

• Single-crystalline hollow PtNiCu and PtCoCu nanoparticles (average diameter 5 nm) were successfully synthesized.
• Hollow PtNiCu nanoparticles (10% Pt) demonstrated superior HER activity and stability over commercial Pt/C.
• Achieved overpotential of 28 mV at 10 mA cm^-2 and mass activity 5.62 times higher than Pt/C.

Conclusions:

• The hollow PtNiCu nanoparticles exhibit excellent HER performance due to synergistic metal interactions.
• This work presents a new strategy for designing low-cost, high-activity HER catalysts.
• The findings contribute to advancing electrocatalyst development for renewable energy applications.