Synergistic Effect of Dual-Doped Carbon on Mo(2)C Nanocrystals Facilitates Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution

Molybdenum carbide (Mo(2)C) materials are promising electrocatalysts with potential applications in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) due to low cost and Pt-like electronic structures. Nevertheless, their HER activity is usually hindered by the strong hydrogen binding energy. Moreover, the lack of water-cleaving sites makes it difficult for the catalysts to work in alkaline solutions. Here, we designed and synthesized a B and N dual-doped carbon layer that encapsulated on Mo(2)C nanocrystals (Mo(2)C@BNC) for accelerating HER under alkaline condition. The electronic interactions between the Mo(2)C nanocrystals and the multiple-doped carbon layer endow a near-zero H adsorption Gibbs free energy on the defective C atoms over the carbon shell. Meanwhile, the introduced B atoms afford optimal H(2)O adsorption sites for the water-cleaving step. Accordingly, the dual-doped Mo(2)C catalyst with synergistic effect of non-metal sites delivers superior HER performances of a low overpotential (99 mV@10 mA cm(−2)) and a small Tafel slope (58.1 mV dec(−1)) in 1 M KOH solution. Furthermore, it presents a remarkable activity that outperforming the commercial 10% Pt/C catalyst at large current density, demonstrating its applicability in industrial water splitting. This study provides a reasonable design strategy towards noble-metal-free HER catalysts with high activity. [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40820-023-01135-0.