Journal
NANO ENERGY
Volume 36, Issue -, Pages 374-380Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2017.04.057
Keywords
High-index facets; Tantalum carbide; Chlorination; Hydrogen evolution
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [51372186, 51672204]
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The electrocatalysis of nanoscale group V metal carbides (e.g. TaC) has almost received far less attentions owing to lack of active sites. Our theoretical calculations show that high-index (222) facets of TaC are dramatically more active than its other facets towards hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, the easy evolution of exposed high-index (222) facets causes a big challenge in fabrication. Here, to obtain the carbon-cohered highindex (222) faceted tantalum carbide nanocrystals (TaC NCs@C), we first develop a novel chlorine-assisted micro-cutting-fragmentation technique by incomplete chlorination towards bulk TaC. Interestingly, benefiting from transition zones between in situ formed carbon layers and (222) facets, the evolution of high-index (222) facets with high surface energy can be prevented during the preparation and electrochemical reaction. When evaluated as a HER catalyst, TaC NCs@C presents a low overpotential of similar to 146 mV at 10 mA cm(-2), a large exchange current density of 9.69x10(-2) mA cm(-2) and outstanding long-term cycling performance. To the best of our knowledge, this HER performance is far preferable to that of the reported group V metal carbides-based catalysts. In the light of the highly generic nature, the methodology developed in this study can be widely applied to produce other in situ carbon armored high-index faceted metal carbide nanocrystals.
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