Advanced Pt-based electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline medium

Water electro-splitting driven by renewable energy is significant in energy conversion for the development of hydrogen energy sources. The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) directly generating hydrogen products occurs in cathode catalysis. Over the years, significant progress has been made to boost the HER efficiency by exploratively designing highly active and economical Pt-based electrocatalysts. However, there are still some urgent problems to be solved for Pt-based HER catalysts in more economical alkaline electrolytes, such as the slow kinetics caused by additional hydrolysis dissociation steps, which greatly hinders the practical application. This review systematically summarizes several strategies for optimizing alkaline HER kinetics and provides direct guidelines for the design of highly active Pt-based electrocatalysts. Specifically, the intrinsic HER activity in alkaline water electrolysis can be boosted by accelerating the water dissociation, optimizing the hydrogen binding energy or modulating the spatial dimensions of the electrocatalyst based on the HER mechanism. Finally, we prospect the challenges for the alkaline HER on novel Pt-based electrocatalysts, including the active site study, the HER mechanism exploration and the extensible catalyst preparation technologies.

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