Realizing Negatively Charged Metal Atoms through Controllable d‐Electron Transfer in Ternary Ir <sub>1−</sub> <i> <sub>x</sub> </i> Rh <i> <sub>x</sub> </i> Sb Intermetallic Alloy for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction
Zhiping Lin, Beibei Xiao, Min Huang, Linghui Yan, Zongpeng Wang, Yucong Huang, Shijie Shen, Qinghua Zhang, Lin Gu, Wenwu Zhong
Abstract
Abstract Alloying noble metals with non‐noble metals is a promising method to fabricate catalysts, with the advantages of reduced noble metal usage and excellent activity. In this work, electron‐abundant Ir/Rh sites, as highly active centers for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), are realized by fabricating Ir 1− x Rh x Sb alloys through the arc‐melting method. The electron transfer from Sb to Ir/Rh makes the latter negatively charged, leading to considerably optimized adsorption for active H species during HER. As a result, the Ir 1− x Rh x Sb alloy exhibits outstanding activity for HER, with an optimized overpotential of 22 mV at 10 mA cm –2 and a Tafel slope of 47.6 mV dec –1 . This work provides insights into highly active alloys and sheds light on the utilization of electron‐abundant metal atoms.