Growth of porous single-crystalline molybdenum nitrides microcubes with enhanced electrocatalysis performance

Porous single crystal has the characteristics of long-range order, continuous lattice and large specific surface area, which could reduce energy losses and keep high activity and stability in electrochemical systems. Here, we grow porous single-crystalline and polycrystalline molybdenum nitrides microcubes from MoO3 single crystals. These porous microcubes show superior HER and OER performance. The overpotential of Mo2N porous single crystal microcubes is only 73.13 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm−2, which is 150.53 mV, 192.76 mV and 255.87 mV lower than that of MoN single crystal, Mo2N polycrystal and MoN polycrystal, respectively. The advantages of Mo2N porous single crystals in electrocatalytic properties are also reflected in OER.