Phase-tailored CoCrFeNiAl nitride for enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution via cooling-mediated plasma strategy
Source abstract
Abstract
Modulation of the surface structure of high-entropy-alloy-based nitrides (HEANs) is considered essential for improving electrocatalytic H2 production. Compared with thermal nitridation, the plasma technique is a favorable alternative to directly fabricate HEANs, but the excessive surface heating effect during plasma treatment inevitably causes thermally stabilized nitride formation, resulting in deterioration of the highly active structure. To optimize the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) behavior of HEANs, a facile cooling-mediated plasma strategy is proposed to precisely modulate the HEAN structure (cp-HEAN). The resultant cp-HEAN framework shows a preserved FCC (111) facet and yields an increased amorphous proportion, leading to enhanced HER behavior. In comparison, the normal plasma technique causes FCC lattice distortion with increased precipitation owing to the excessively high surface thermal field (np-HEAN). Operando plasma diagnostics and numerical simulation further confirmed the effect of surface heating on typical plasma parameters and the HEAN framework, indicating that this was the key factor responsible for the high performance of the nitride electrocatalyst.
Source: europepmc · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion · Metal and Thin Film Mechanics · Machine Learning in Materials Science
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
MIIT Key Laboratory of Semiconductor Microstructure and Quantum Sensing, School of Science, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
School of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Dezhou University, Dezhou, 253023, China
Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611371, China
Beijing Aerospace Micro-Electronics Technology Co. Ltd, Beijing Institute of Radio Measurement, Beijing 1000039, China
Research Institute of Advanced Materials (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd, Shenzhen 518045, China
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Functional Inorganic Material Chemistry of Anhui Province, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui 230601, China
Funding
Nanjing University of Science and Technology · Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province · National Natural Science Foundation of China · National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars · Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
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