Tailored Interatomic Interactions in High-Entropy Alloys for Enhanced Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction in Alkaline Water
Liping Ren, Kaini Zhang, Yucheng Huang, Ying‐Rui Lu, Hao Deng, Yan Ding, Chunying Chen, Bo Huang, Weibo Hua, Lin Fu, Xiaohui Zhao, Shaohua Shen, Jinjia Wei, Jie Chen
Abstract
Interatomic interactions play a crucial role in electrocatalysts for the efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, understanding the effect of interatomic interactions in high-entropy alloys (HEAs) on HER is challenging due to their complex compositions. In this study, we meticulously designed a series of quinary and senary HEAs (PtPd- and PtPdRu-HEA) with tailored interatomic interactions. Notably, a specific hydrogen spillover pathway facilitated by atomic interactions in PtPd-HEA was unveiled. By means of the hydrogen spillover effect (HSE), a decent alkaline HER performance was achieved with PtPd-HEA, exhibiting an overpotential of only 12 mV at 10 mA cm –2, and a stability exceeding 200 h in 1 M KOH. Moreover, using PtPd-HEA as a cathode and NiFe-LDH as an anode, the as-fabricated anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer exhibited a high operational stability exceeding 100 h at 1 A cm –2 . And, the detrimental role of Ru to weaken the desorption of *H on PtPdRu-HEA via decreasing the lattice distortion rate of the (111) plane was identified. Consequently, PtPdRu-HEA exhibited HER activity lower than that of PtPd-HEA.