Self-supporting Atmosphere Assisted Synthesis of 1D Mo2C-based Catalyst for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution.

One-dimensional (1D) materials exhibit fascinating properties in electrocatalytic applications but their fabrication faces the challenge of tedious and complicated operations. Herein, we develop a bottom-up strategy to construct 1D metal carbide catalyst (Mo2C@NC) consisting of ultrafine Mo2C nanoparticles embedded within nitrogen-doped carbon layers via simply calcining a mixture of ammonium molybdate, urea and melamine. Experimental results and thermodynamic calculations demonstrate the retainable pyrolysis-generated self-supporting atmosphere plays a crucial role in the crystalline phase and morphology of materials. When functioned as an electrocatalyst for HER, the achieved Mo2C@NC presents an excellent catalytic activity as well as outstanding stability. This work may shed fresh light into the facile synthesis of effective HER catalysts with 1D nanostructure.