title: Active Sites Implanted Carbon Cages in Core-Shell Architecture: Highly Active and Durable Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction.
abstract: Low efficiency and poor stability are two major challenges we encounter in the exploration of non-noble metal electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in both acidic and alkaline environment. Herein, the hybrid of cobalt encapsulated by N, B codoped ultrathin carbon cages (Co@BCN) is first introduced as a highly active and durable nonprecious metal electrocatalysts for HER, which is constructed by a bottom-up approach using metal organic frameworks (MOFs) as precursor and self-sacrificing template. The optimized catalyst exhibited remarkable electrocatalytic performance for hydrogen production from both both acidic and alkaline media. Stability investigation reveals the overcoating of carbon cages can effectively avoid the corrosion and oxidation of the catalyst under extreme acidic and alkaline environment. Electrochemical active surface area (EASA) evaluation and density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed that the synergetic effect between the encapsulated cobalt nanoparticle and the N, B codoped carbon shell played the fundamental role in the superior HER catalytic performance.
authors.affiliation: TU-NIMS Joint Research Center, and Key Lab of Advanced Ceramics and Machining Techonology of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University , 92 Weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin 300072, PR China.|Environmental Remediation Materials Unit, and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Huabin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, The Chinese Academy of Sciences , Fuzhou 350002, PR China.
authors.forename: Zuju
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Adelaide , Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.
authors.forename: Jingjing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.affiliation: Environmental Remediation Materials Unit, and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Huimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Environmental Remediation Materials Unit, and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Guigao
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Environmental Remediation Materials Unit, and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Environmental Remediation Materials Unit, and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Environmental Remediation Materials Unit, and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Mu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Environmental Remediation Materials Unit, and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Environmental Remediation Materials Unit, and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Xianguang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.affiliation: Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, The Chinese Academy of Sciences , Fuzhou 350002, PR China.
authors.forename: Kechen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: TU-NIMS Joint Research Center, and Key Lab of Advanced Ceramics and Machining Techonology of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University , 92 Weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin 300072, PR China.|Environmental Remediation Materials Unit, and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Jinhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ye
keywords: N/B codoping; active surface area; catalysis; core/shell nanoparticles; hydrogen evolution reaction