Heterointerface-rich Mo2C/MoO2 porous nanorod enables superior alkaline hydrogen evolution

Abstract For the large-scale industrialization of hydrogen production from water electrolysis, cost-effective catalyst toward efficient cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) has to be developed. Mo2C possesses similar electronic structure to Pt and is considered as a potential alternative HER catalyst while there is still a certain distance to reach the ideal HER activity. Porous nanorod with dense Mo2C/MoO2 heterointerfaces (h-Mo2C/MoO2) was designed via a facile F etching strategy to utilize the electronic effect of spontaneously generated surface MoO2 on Mo2C. Overpotential to deliver 100 mA/cm2 HER for h-Mo2C/MoO2 is low to 152 mV, which is half of that for commercial Pt/C catalyst. Activity in terms of the HER current dentistry at 150 mV overpotential of h-Mo2C/MoO2 is hence 1.23 times higher than that of Pt/C. By considering the good stability as well, the h-Mo2C/MoO2 catalyst shows good application prospect in the practical alkaline water electrolysis devices.