Boosting hydrogen evolution reaction on few-layer graphdiyne by sp-N and B co-doping

Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts based on noble metals traditionally suffered from high cost, low activity, and poor stability. Metal-free catalysts originating from heteroatom-doped carbon materials have been proposed to address these problems, in which the doping configurations and electronic structures are critical for modulating the electrocatalytic activity. Herein, we reported a sequential approach for the co-doping of B and N atoms into graphdiyne (GDY). We noticed that the configurations of heteroatoms are strongly related to the doping process, and the subsequent HER test shows that a certain sp-N can decrease the overpotential, and further introduction of B atoms can continuously enhance the current density owing to the synergistic effect of chemical and electronic couplings on proton adsorption/reduction kinetics. This work provides a deeper understanding of developing dual heteroatom doped non-metallic catalysts.

Automated summary

This study presents a sequential approach for co-doping B and N atoms into graphdiyne, revealing the strong relationship between heteroatom configurations and doping process, and showing that the method plays a significant role in enhancing current density.