Confining platinum clusters in ZIF-8-derived porous N-doped carbon arrays for high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract Exploring high efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction plays a vital role in the sustainable and widespread application of hydrogen fuel. Platinum-based electrocatalysts, as one of the most standout candidates, are limited to large-scale commercial applications attributing to their scarcity, expensive price, poor stability, and inferior durability. Herein, we construct a ZIF-8-derived nitrogen-doped carbon arrays-confined platinum clusters structure, named CTA@Pt@NCBs, on a continuously conducting carbon nanotube arrays substrate. As expected, the prepared CTAs@Pt@NCBs exhibits a low overpotential of 27.42 mV at 10 mA cm-2. More importantly, CTA@Pt@NCBs demonstrate excellent stability and durability, with 97.18% potential retention after 60 h of chronopotentiometric test, higher than that of commercial Pt/C (53.09%), and virtually no decrease in activity after 10, 000 potential cycles. The excellent electrocatalytic performance is mainly attributed to the unique structural features, including confined Pt clusters, porous nitrogen-doped carbon bubbles, continuous conductive carbon nanotube arrays, and binder-free electrode. This work provides a feasible strategy for improving the stability and atom utilization efficiency of platinum-based catalysts, thereby increasing their cost-effectiveness.