The Weyl Semimetals MIrTe4 (M = Nb, Ta) as Efficient Catalysts for Dye-sensitized Hydrogen Evolution
Manisha Samanta a, Hengxin Tan b, Sourav Laha a, Hugo Alejandro Vignolo González a, Lars Grunenberg a, Sebastian Bette a, Viola Duppel a, Binghai Yan b, Bettina V. Lotsch a c d
a Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany, Germany
b Weizmann Institute of Science, Herzl St. 234, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
c Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Butenandtstrasse 5-13, 81377 Munich, Germany
d E-conversion, Lichtenbergstrasse 4a, 85748 Garching, Germany
Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of MATSUS23 & Sustainable Technology Forum València (STECH23) (MATSUS23)
#GreenE - Advances in Green Energy Carriers
VALÈNCIA, Spain, 2023 March 6th - 10th
Organizers: Taeseup Song and Ungyu Paik
Poster, Manisha Samanta, 315
Publication date: 22nd December 2022

The prevailing global energy crisis calls for searching viable pathways for generating green hydrogen as an alternative energy resource. Dye-sensitized photocatalytic water splitting is a feasible solution to produce green hydrogen. However, identifying suitable catalysts has been one of the bottlenecks in driving dye-sensitized photocatalysis efficiently. In this work, we report a new class of electrocatalysts based on the layered Weyl semimetals MIrTe4 (M = Nb, Ta) for the Eosin Y (EY)-sensitized hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) under visible light illumination. NbIrTe4 and TaIrTe4 exhibit HER activities of ~ 18000 and ~ 14000 µmol g-1, respectively after 10 h of irridation with visible light. MIrTe4 (M = Nb, Ta) outperforms related catalysts including transition metal dichalcogenides and other Weyl semimetals in terms of HER activity using EY as photosensitizer and triethanolamine as the sacrificial agent. We hypothesize that the combination of topologically non-trivial surface states and metal d-band density near the Fermi surface in MIrTe4 are the driving forces for their high catalytic performance.

B.V.L. and M. S. acknowledge support by the Center for Integrated Quantum Science and Technology (IQST) and the Cluster of Excellence e-conversion (Grant No. EXC2089). M.S. thanks Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers.

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