Pt nanodendrites with (111) crystalline facet as an efficient, stable and pH-universal catalyst for electrochemical hydrogen production

Pt nanodendrites were electrodeposited at activated carbon as a catalyst for electrochemical hydrogen production. The fabricated Pt nanodendrites exposed numerous highly active atoms at (111) facet, which contribute to a low Tafel slope of 22.2 mV/dec and improvement of hydrogen production efficiency. [Display omitted] High-performance nanomaterial catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction via electrochemical water splitting are significant to the development of hydrogen energy. In this work, we report a robust and highly active catalyst fabricated through direct electrochemical deposition of Pt nanodendrites at the surface of activated carbon (Pt NDs). Owing to the large electrochemically active area and the exposed (111) facet of Pt, Pt NDs exhibits outstanding activity towards hydrogen evolution reaction with a low requiring overpotential of 0.027 V at 10 mA/cm2 and Tafel slope of ≈ 22 mV/dec in acidic media. In addition, the hydrogen yield of Pt NDs is 30%–45% larger than that of commercial Pt/C at the same Pt loadings. Moreover, Pt NDs exhibits excellent long-term durability whose hydrogen production efficiency remains unchanged after six-hour hydrogen production, while the efficiency of commercial Pt/C catalyst decayed 9% under the same circumstance. Considering the superiority of catalytic activity and stability, this Pt NDs present great potentiality towards practical hydrogen production application.