WO3/C nanoarchitectures assembled with 1D nanowires: The synthesis, Pt nanoparticles decoration, and highly enhanced hydrogen evolution in neutral media

Electrochemical water splitting is an efficient approach to produce green hydrogen, while it is still very challenging to design of highly efficient WO3-based hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts especially those in neutral media. Here, 3D WO3/C nanoarchitectures assembled by 1D nanowires were prepared through water-oil two-phase microemulsion method and subsequent annealing treatment. The monodispersed Pt nanoparticles were loaded onto the WO3/C nanoarchitectures. A series of WO3/C composites were produced via modulating the addition of Pt salt. The optimum 2 Pt@WO3/C catalyst exhibited an overpotential of 149 mV at 10 mA cm−2 in neutral media, which was the first reported about the WO3-based materials and much better than most catalysts reported in literatures by far. Interestingly, the HER activity of 2 Pt@WO3/C was much higher than commercial Pt/C at high overpotential range (>260 mV). Density functional theory results demonstrated that the more toilless HER process could be attributed to the enhanced carrier densities, the electron transfer between Pt and W atoms, and the lowered energy barrier for water dissociation and H* desorption.