| 摘要： |
An excellent catalyst can be effectively designed by adjusting its electronic structure. In this paper, an efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst, carbon nanotubes with N doping and sublayer Co4N encapsulating (N-CNTs@Co4N) supported on Ni foam (NF), was designed and prepared through a complementary electronic structure principle. The as-prepared N-CNTs@Co4N@NF catalyst shows outstanding hydrogen evolution activity in 1.0 M KOH solution. DFT calculation indicated that carbon nanotubes wall of N-CNTs@Co4N@NF catalyst provided more competitive catalytic active sites for hydrogen evolution reaction than N doped CNTs and Co4N singly. The greatly improved catalytic ability was owing to the redistribution of electron density for N-CNTs after Co4N embeds in, leading to a moderate absorption energy of H. This study demonstrated the successful rational design and experimental verification on developing a novel non-noble metal catalyst. |
