Borocarbonitrides as Metal-Free Catalysts for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Hydrogen generation by water splitting is clearly a predominant and essential strategy to tackle the problems related to renewable energy. In this context, the discovery of proper catalysts for electrochemical and photochemical water splitting assumes great importance. There is also a serious intent to eliminate platinum and other noble metal catalysts. To replace Pt by a non-metallic catalyst with desirable characteristics is a challenge. Borocarbonitrides, (BxCyNz) which constitutes a new class of 2D material, offer great promise as non-metallic catalysts because of the easy tunability of bandgap, surface area, and other electronic properties with variation in composition. Recently, BxCyNz composites with excellent electrochemical and photochemical hydrogen generation activities have been found, especially noteworthy being the observation that BxCyNz with a carbon-rich composition or its nanocomposites with MoS2 come close to Pt in electrocatalytic properties, showing equally good photochemical activity.