Tuning the Cobalt-Platinum Alloy Regulating Single-Atom Platinum for Highly Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Designing atomically dispersed metal catalysts for the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a promising strategy to efficiently convert electrical energy to chemical fuels. This strategy, however, still faces the challenge of finding a catalyst with high activity and long-term durability. Here, single-atom platinum and cobalt-platinum-alloy nanocrystals in a nitrogen-doped porous-carbon framework (CoPt-Pt-SA/NDPCF) is confined. The electrocatalyst exhibits ultralow overpotentials under both alkaline and acidic conditions at a high current density of -300 mA cm(-2) and excellent long-term durability up to 100 h or 10 000 cycles, which are attributed to the synergetic effects of Pt-SA and tuning of the CoPt alloy in the NDPCF. First-principles calculations suggested that Pt-SA aided by the CoPt alloy has high d-band occupation for promoting the reaction kinetics. This study opens a new avenue for designing heterostructures with the synergic effects of single metal atoms and metal alloys with outstanding performance in the HER.