oa Facile Synthesized Mo2C Electrocatalyst Supported on Mesoporous Carbon for Hydrogen Generations

The surge in the field of renewable energy aiming to develop clean energy technology is continuing to rise. Quest for a H2-based economy derived from non-fossil resources remains at the forefront of future fuels. During the past few decades there has been intense research on the utilization of electrical energy to produce H2 in an energy efficient and environmentally benign way. Electrocatalytic hydrogen generation via water electrolysis provides an important alternative to that extracted from hydrocarbon resources. One of the most crucial components which could revolutionize H2 production is that the design and development of a novel electrocatalyst that can efficiently split water to generate H2. Currently, platinum (Pt) is known as the state-of-the art electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, due to cost and scarcity of Pt, research focus shifted to precious-metal-free based materials for efficient HER reaction. As results, a wide variety of transition-metal-based electrocatalysts have been developed and investigated. To this end and due to unique d-band electronic structure, Mo-based electrocatalyst such as, Mo2C and MoS2 has been the subject of intense investigation for HER reaction. Yet, functional and robust catalysts operating with reasonable current densities (J) at low overpotential in brine water are still scarce.

Herein, we demonstrate a facile synthesis of β-Mo2C embedded on mesoporous carbon support; Metal Organic Framework (MIL 53(Al)) was utilized as a novel source for mesoporous carbon support. Microscopic studies revealed the formation of monodisperse Mo2C with