High-density single-atom electrocatalytic centers on two-dimensional topological platinum tellurides with Te-vacancy superstructure
Year: 2023
Type: preprint
Abstract: Chemical activation of the intrinsically inert basal planes of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) is crucial for developing high-efficiency electrocatalysts for energy technology applications. Here we report the discovery of an efficient TMD-based topological catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), containing high-density single-atom reactive centers on a few-layer (7x7)-PtTe2-x superstructure with a Te-vacancy density of x. Compared with pristine Pt(111), PtTe2, and (2x2)-PtTe2-x, (7x7)-PtTe2-x exhibits superior HER performance owing to its substantially increased density of undercoordinated Pt sites, and displays exceptional catalytic stability when operating at high current densities. Our first-principles calculations confirm that multiple types of undercoordinated Pt sites on (7x7)-PtTe2-x exhibit favorable hydrogen adsorption Gibbs free energies, and that the reactive sites can further increase their population upon increasing hydrogen coverage. Both the (2x2)- and (7x7)-PtTe2-x are also shown to possess nontrivial band topology with robust edge states that may further facilitate HER.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Xu, Xin, Wang, Xuechun, Yu, Shuming, Wang, Chenhui, Liu, Guowei, Li, Hao, Yang, Jiangang, Li, Jing, Sun, Tao, Hai, Xiao, Li, Lei, Liu, Xue, Zhang, Ying, Zhang, Weifeng, Zhang, Quan, Wang, Kedong, Xu, Nan, Ma, Yaping, Ming, Fangfei, Cui, Ping, Lu, Jiong, Zhang, Zhenyu, Xiao, Xudong
Institutions: University of Science and Technology of China, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan University, Henan University, Southern University of Science and Technology, Beihang University, Northwest University, National University of Singapore, Anhui University, Henan Academy of Sciences, Hubei Normal University, Sun Yat-sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technology
Language: English
Field: Energy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4385003561