Hierarchically Structured N-C/Ni-C Pyramid Arrays toward Efficient Evolution of Hydrogen

Xunyu Lu^a, Yun Hau Ng^a, Da-Wei Wang^a, Rose Amal^a

^aParticles and Catalysis Research Group, School of Chemical Engineering,, The University of New South Wales, Kensington, 2052, Australia

Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of September Meeting 2016 (NFM16)

Berlin, Germany, 2016 September 5th - 13th

Organizers: Marin Alexe, Enrique Cánovas, Celso de Mello Donega, Ivan Infante, Thomas Kirchartz, Maksym Kovalenko, Federico Rosei, Lukas Schmidt-Mende, Laurens Siebbeles, Peter Strasser, Teodor K Todorov, Roel van de Krol and Ulrike Woggon

Poster, Xunyu Lu, 032
Publication date: 14th June 2016

Electrolytic splitting of water into hydrogen (H₂) and oxygen (O₂) provides a promising approach for the storage of renewable energy resources such as solar and wind in the form of chemicals, therefore caters the demand of a continuous usage as well as the facile distribution of these intermittent and diffusive energy sources.^1,2 To be commercially viable, highly active hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts, for instance, that can achieve a current density of 100 mA/cm² at an applied overpotentail < 100 mV, are required. Currently, platinum (Pt) and its alloys are the state-of-the-art catalysts for HER, while a large-scale implementation of these catalysts has been severely restrained by the cost and scarcity of Pt. As a result, non-precious material based catalysts that exhibit comparable HER catalytic activities to the Pt based catalysts, are urgently required.

Herein, we report the superior HER performance of a hierarchically structured binder-free electrode that comprises nitrogen doped carbon nanosheets (N-C) coated nickel carbon (Ni-C) pyramid arrays on a three-dimensional Ni foam (Ni-F) current collector (N-C/Ni-C/Ni-F). The N-C/Ni-C pyramid arrays are rationally fabricated by thermal pyrolysis of a bi-layer deposit/coating consisting of a bottom MOF layer and a top g-C₃N₄ film on the surface of nickel skeleton in the Ni-F. The obtained pyramid arrays will provide a large accessible surface area where HER can take place and form an intimate contact with the Ni-F substrate that allows a fast transport of electrons during HER. Ni-F has been a popular current collector owing to its unique three-dimensional (3D) bi-continuous framework that provides large electro-active surface area, high conductivity, and fast bubble removal rate.^3,4 Ni-F is also low-cost that favors scale up production. The hierarchical N-C/Ni-C/N-F electrode exhibits a catalytic activity of HER closes to the benchmark Pt/C catalysts in alkaline media, together with a prominent stability upon prolonged operation, and has the potential to be scaled up for practical applications.

Reference

1. Cook, T. R.; Dogutan, D. K.; Reece, S. Y.; Surendranath, Y.; Teets, T. S.; Nocera, D. G. Chem. Rev. 2010, 110, 6474-6502.

2. Lu, X. Y.; Yim, W. L.; Suryanto, B. H. R.; Zhao, C. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 2901-2907.

3. Lu, X. Y.; Zhao, C. Nat. Commun. 2015, 6, 6616.4.

4. Xiao, C. L.; Li, Y. B.; Lu, X. Y.; Zhao, C. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2016, 26, 3515–3523

nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.

MATSUS

Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.

Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics

The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.

International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics

The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.