Molybdenum-modified platinum nanoparticles confined on Ni-encapsulated carbon nanotubes with strong metal-support interaction for efficient hydrogen evolution catalysis

The paper presents the design of an electrocatalyst named Mo-Pt/Ni-CNTs, which combines the advantages of strong metal-support interaction and the synergistic effect of active sites. In a three-electrode electrochemical measurement, the Mo-Pt/Ni-CNTs demonstrates a lower overpotential of 29.2 mV at 10 mA cm −2 , and a favorable Tafel slope of 33.7 mV decade −1 in comparison to Pt/C catalyst in 1.0 M KOH. Furthermore, the anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer cell achieves a low cell voltage of 2.41 V at 2 A cm −2 (in 1.0 M KOH solution at 80 °C). In-situ Raman analysis and DFT calculations reveal that introducing Mo atoms into the Pt sites and loading them onto the special carbon nanotubes, which are wrapped nickel (Ni-CNTs), can not only change the Pt valence state and electrical structure, but also form the strong metal-support interactions between Mo-Pt nanoparticles and Ni-CNTs.