Cu-doped molybdenum carbide encapsulated within two-dimensional nanosheets assembled hierarchical tubular nitrogen-doped carbon for enhanced hydrogen evolution

Abstract The development of low cost and high efficiency electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a key step in the realization of hydrogen production from electrolytic water. In this study, we report a feasible strategy to fabricate Cu-doped molybdenum carbide encapsulated within two-dimensional nanosheets assembled hierarchical tubular nitrogen-doped carbon (Cu/Mo2C@HTNC) through the coordination reaction between MoO3 nanorod as template and dopamine in alkaline medium followed by two-step consecutive pyrolysis. The effective Cu doping into Mo2C crystal structure is found to increase the electron density around Mo and catalytic active sites density for optimizing the strength of Mo–H bond, thus facilitating the HER process. As expected, the optimal Cu/Mo2C@HTNC exhibits excellent HER performance with a low over-potential of 113 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and a small Tafel slope of 55 mV dec−1 as well as excellent stability in 1 M KOH.