The development of economic and easily accessible electrocatalysts is very important in order to facilitate the implementation of hydrogen production through water electrolysis. Transition metal carbide compounds are foreseen to show a very good electrocatalytic activity towards the hydrogen evolution reaction, which can approach and even surpass this of expensive noble metals.
In the present work, led by ENPHOCAMAT group, graphene nanowalls electrodes have been used as a support for the deposition of Mo2C nanostructures. The role of graphene nanowalls here is dual. First, they possess a very high specific surface area, facilitating the loading with high amount of Mo2C. Second, the Mo2C/ graphene hybrids show better conductivity and easier surface adsorption of hydrogen ions. When used as a cathode electrode towards hydrogen evolution reaction in acid media, the compound requires only 82 mV for the generation of 10 mA, which is one of the lowest overpotential values found in literature for this class of materials.
You can read more at: Hybrid Nanostructured Compounds of Mo2C on Vertical Graphene Nanoflakes for a Highly Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction. Stefanos Chaitoglou, Roger Amade, Rogelio Ospina, and Enric Bertran-Serra. ACS Appl. Energy Mater. 2023