Nickel decorated MoO3 single crystal microflakes with multi-site functionality for enhanced hydrogen evolution reaction

Role of hybrid material with metal-oxide interface has been explored by coating 2 nm nickel on alpha-MoO3 single crystals for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The investigated aspects reveal that alpha-MoO3/Ni hybrid exhibits a remarkable performance in HER showing +6 mV onset potential and 37 mV overpotential at 10 mA/cm(2) current density along with Tafel slope of 47 mV/dec. The single crystalline-stepped CVD-grown MoO3 microflakes having the advantage of higher hydrogen binding energy of Ni exhibits the enhanced catalytic performance due to strong electronic coupling at the metal-oxide interface and hydrogen spill over effect. Similar hybrid material composed of Cu-MoO3 does show improvement but not as good as Ni-MoO3. A decrease of similar to 36% is observed in the overpotential for Ni-coated MoO3 compared to pure MoO3 crystals indicating the positive contribution of Ni-coating. The hybrid Ni-MoO3 shows the new route to develop alternate transition metal oxide-based hybrid catalyst towards production of hydrogen fuel. (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The hybrid material composed of metal and oxide interface, such as alpha-MoO3/Ni, shows remarkable performance in hydrogen evolution reaction. The strong electronic coupling at the metal-oxide interface and hydrogen spill over effect contribute to the enhanced catalytic performance. The Ni-MoO3 hybrid presents a new route for developing alternative transition metal oxide-based hybrid catalysts for hydrogen fuel production.