Transition metal carbides decoration of 3D graphene nanostructures for enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen production [CARBODOH2]

The exhaustible nature of fossil fuels places our society in seek for alternative and renewable energy carriers. Hydrogen has attracted significant attention as it holds the highest specific energy density of any known fuel. In addition, it is a clean fuel that, whose consume produces only water, electricity, and heat.

Water splitting through electrolysis is an environmentally responsible, carbon-free alternative technique for hydrogen generation. Water splitting takes place in an electrolytic cell (or electrolyzer).

The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) occur at the cathode and the anode of the cell, producing gaseous hydrogen and oxygen molecules, respectively.

Heterogeneous electrocatalysis is a process that can accelerate these electrochemical reactions on the surface of catalysts materials.

For the production of H2, the design and development of efficient catalysts towards the HER is of fundamental importance. Up today, noble metals of the platinum group (e.g. Rh, Pt, Ru) are the most attractive electrocatalysts for HER. Nevertheless, the high cost and scarcity of these materials limit their potential applications.

Earth-abundant transition metals (TM) based catalysts also show great potential for the HER.

Especially transition metal carbides (TMC) are very promising materials for this application, thanks to their performance and availability.

In order to increase H2 generation per electrode surface area, it is beneficial to engineer catalysts with high active surface area (offering an increased amount of active sites).

The present project is prepared placing this necessity in its core and aims towards the design of novel nanostructured TMCs which can exhibit a very efficient activity towards the HER.

To address this challenge, we propose a novel synthetic approach which promotes the preparation of nano-engineered TMCs films standing on graphene-based highly conductive templates that exhibit very high active surface area.