Cohesive energy discrepancy drives the fabrication of multimetallic atomically dispersed materials for hydrogen evolution reaction.

Yang, Xinyi; Song, Wanqing; Liao, Kang; Wang, Xiaoyang; Wang, Xin; Zhang, Jinfeng; Wang, Haozhi; Chen, Yanan et al. · Nat Commun · 2024

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Atomically dispersed single atom (SA) and atomic cluster (AC) metallic materials attract tremendous attentions in various fields. Expanding monometallic SA and AC to multimetallic SA/AC composites opens vast scientific and technological potentials yet exponentially increasing the synthesis difficulty. Here, we present a general energy-selective-clustering methodology to build the largest reported library of carbon supported bi-/multi-metallic SA/AC materials. The discrepancy in cohesive energy results into selective metal clustering thereby driving the symbiosis of multimetallic SA or/and AC. The library includes 23 bimetallic SA/AC composites, and expanded compositional space of 17 trimetallic, quinary-metallic, septenary-metallic SA/AC composites. We chose bimetallic M<sup>1</sup><sub>SA</sub>M<sup>2</sup><sub>AC</sub> to demonstrate the electrocatalysis utility. Unique decoupled active sites and inter-site synergy lead to 8/47 mV overpotential at 10 mA cm<sup>-2</sup> for alkaline/acidic hydrogen evolution and over 1000 h durability in water electrolyzer. Moreover, delicate modulations towards composition and configuration yield high-performance catalysts for multiple electrocatalysis systems. Our work broadens the family of atomically dispersed materials from monometallic to multimetallic and provides a platform to explore the complex composition induced unconventional effects.