A highly efficient atomically thin curved PdIr bimetallene electrocatalyst

The multi-metallene with an ultrahigh surface area has great potential in precise tuning of surface heterogeneous d-electronic correlation by surface strain effect for the distinctive surface electronic structure, which is a brand new class of promising 2D electrocatalyst for sustainable energy device application. However, achieving such an atomically thin multi-metallene still presents a great challenge. Herein, we present a new synthetic method for an atomic-level palladium-iridium (PdIr) bimetallene with an average thickness of only similar to 1.0 nm for achieving superior catalysis in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the formic acid oxidation reaction (FAOR). The curved PdIr bimetallene presents a top-ranked high electrochemical active area of 127.5 +/- 10.8 m(2) g(Pd+Ir)(-1) in the reported noble alloy materials, and exhibits a very low overpotential, ultrahigh activity and improved stability for HER and FAOR. DFT calculation reveals that the PdIr bimetallene herein has a unique lattice tangential strain, which can induce surface distortion while concurrently creating a variety of concave-convex featured micro-active regions formed by variously coordinated Pd sites agglomeration. Such a strong strain effect correlates the abnormal on-site active 4d(10)-t(2g)-orbital Coulomb correlation potential and directly elevates orbital-electronegativity exposure within these active regions, resulting in a preeminent barrier-free energetic path for significant enhancement of FAOR and HER catalytic performance.

Automated summary

The study introduces a new synthetic method for creating an atomic-level PdIr bimetallene with an average thickness of around 1.0 nm, which demonstrates superior catalytic performance in the hydrogen evolution reaction and the formic acid oxidation reaction.