Huanwei Ren, Wanqing Yu, Maoyuan Lv, Jie Gao, Hao Hu, Mengdi Wang, Xuejing Cui, Jing Liu^*, Luhua Jiang^*

College of Materials Science & Engineering, Qingdao University of Science & Technology, Qingdao, 266042, P.R. China

E-mail: liuj955@qust.edu.cn; luhuajiang@qust.edu.cn

Abstract:

Developing efficient and stable non-noble metal electrocatalysts for fuel cells ispivotal yet challenging. Herein, we propose a dual-modulation strategy by integrating a single-atom alloy (SAA) corewith a carbon encapsulation to fabricate an advanced NiPt_SA@NC catalyst, which exhibits an impressive specific activity of 82.0 μA cm^-2 and  superior stability for alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR). Experimental and theoretical investigations unveil that the superior HOR performance is due to the enhanced water adsorption and optimized hydrogen binding energy over the dual-modulated Ni active centers with a moderately downshifted d-band center, which stems from the charge polarization triggered by the introduced Pt atoms, creating an electron-rich local environment for Pt atoms while electon-depletion  for Ni atoms, as well as inducing electrons transfer from the metallic core to the carbon shell. This study provides an effective dual modulation strategy to construct robust non-noble metal electrocatalysts for HOR, which also provide a guidance for catalyst design of other similar catalytic reacions.

https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202413754