On January 6th, Associate Professor Chen Zhigang from the School of Materials Science and Engineering of CQUT published a research paper titled "Termination-Acidity Tailoring of Molybdenum Carbides for Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution Reaction" in Nature Communications. The paper reports on the application of localized acidity regulation on the surface of molybdenum carbide electrodes for efficient hydrogen production through alkaline water electrolysis.

The major unit of this paper is the School of Materials Science and Engineering of Chongqing University of Technology. Associate Professor Chen Zhigang, Yang Minghao, a graduate master's student from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Associate Research Fellow Li Yifan from the Suzhou Institute of Nanotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Associate Professor Gong Wenbin from Xuzhou University of Technology are the co-first authors of the paper.

The paper explain the regulation of the Fermi energy level structure of metals by carbon atom embedding, molybdenum carbide materials are predicted to have an advantage over precious metal platinum in the field of hydrogen production through water electrolysis. Recent studies have shown that the efficient hydrogen production activity of molybdenum carbide materials mainly originates from the spontaneously formed oxide (MoOx) termination structure on the surface of the metal carbide layer. However, in high pH alkaline environments, the acidic MoOx structure on the surface of molybdenum carbide is prone to alkaline corrosion dissolution reactions (MoOx + OH- → MoO42- + H2O), which severely affects the stability of the molybdenum carbide catalyst electrode for hydrogen production.

In view of this, Associate Professor Chen Zhigang, in collaboration with the Vacuum Interconnect Experimental Station of the Suzhou Institute of Nanotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Synchrotron Radiation Center of the University of Science and Technology of China, and the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility and other national-level large scientific device experimental platforms, utilized advanced morphological and spectroscopic characterization techniques to reveal the mechanism by which trivalent Al3+ modified bridging hydroxyl groups (-Al-OH-Mo-) act as Brønsted acid sites to enhance the stability of molybdenum carbide electrode materials.