Synergistic effects of Mo2C/CeO2 nanoparticles anchored on nitrogen-doped carbon as an efficiently electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

As a catalyst, Mo₂C has excellent hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance due to its platinum-like structure. However, insufficient exposure of active sites and excessive Mo–H binding energy of single Mo₂C catalyst limits the improvement of HER performance. In this work, a nitrogen-doped porous carbon anchored Mo₂C and CeO₂ nanoparticles (Mo₂C/CeO₂/NC) for HER was manufactured by utilizing electronic fuel injection (EFI) technology. At the current density of 10 mA cm^?2, it revealed a lower overpotential of 220 mV and a smaller Tafel slope value of 123 mV dec^?1, and after 20 h of continuous tests and 2000 CV cycles, and exhibited excellent electrochemical stability. Owing to the synergetic effects between Mo₂C, CeO₂ and nitrogen-doped porous carbon, the intrinsic catalytic activity of the catalyst was greatly improved, and the electron/proton transport was accelerated, therefore the Mo₂C/CeO₂/NC catalyst exhibited excellent HER catalytic performance and superior durability. And this work was expected to promote the development of nonmetal-doped carbon-supported nanoparticle-based catalysts in the field of electrochemistry.