Water induced ultrathin Mo<sub>2</sub>C nanosheets with high-density grain boundaries for enhanced hydrogen evolution.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36433983.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-34976-1 and PMC identifier 9700844.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Grain boundary controlling is an effective approach for manipulating the electronic structure of electrocatalysts to improve their hydrogen evolution reaction performance. However, probing the direct effect of grain boundaries as highly active catalytic hot spots is very challenging. Herein, we demonstrate a general water-assisted carbothermal reaction strategy for the construction of ultrathin Mo<sub>2</sub>C nanosheets with high-density grain boundaries supported on N-doped graphene. The polycrystalline Mo<sub>2</sub>C nanosheets are connected with N-doped graphene through Mo-C bonds, which affords an ultra-high density of active sites, giving excellent hydrogen evolution activity and superior electrocatalytic stability. Theoretical calculations reveal that the d<sub>z</sub><sup>2</sup> orbital energy level of Mo atoms is controlled by the MoC<sub>3</sub> pyramid configuration, which plays a vital role in governing the hydrogen evolution activity. The d<sub>z</sub><sup>2</sup> orbital energy level of metal atoms exhibits an intrinsic relationship with the catalyst activity and is regarded as a descriptor for predicting the hydrogen evolution activity.