A highly active and durable CuPdPt/C electrocatalyst for an efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

Active, durable and cost-effective electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are of critical importance to the area of renewable energy. Despite the rapid development of alternative materials, platinum-based materials are still the most efficient catalysts for the HER. In this work, we report a facile strategy to construct a hybrid material comprising monodisperse CuPdPt nanocrystals loaded on pretreated Ketjen carbon. Significantly, this hybrid catalyst exhibited superior electrocatalytic activity and durability. The CuPdPt/C catalyst can achieve a factor of 701 enhancement in mass activity at -0.1 V vs. RHE compared with the commercial Pt/C catalyst and it can endure at least 20 000 cycles with negligible activity loss. Impressively, the total platinum content in the hybrid catalyst is merely about 0.095 wt%. More importantly, this reported strategy can be readily extended to design other high-performance platinum-based nanomaterials for applications in catalysis and energy conversion.