Boosting the hydrogen evolution of layered double hydroxide by optimizing the electronic structure and accelerating the water dissociation kinetics

A novel electrocatalyst of Cu 2 O/CoCu-LDH inlaid bilayer nanosheets is constructed for alkaline HER, which outperforms commercial Pt/C at a practical current density of 600 mA cm -2 . The superior HER performance of Cu 2 O/CoCu-LDH is attributed to the distinctive morphology, optimized electronic structure, and accelerated water dissociation kinetics. • Cu 2 O/CoCu-LDH inlaid bilayer nanosheets arrays is successfully constructed by a simple hydrothermal process. • Cu 2 O/CoCu-LDH exhibits obvious advantages for HER at 600 mA cm -2 over commercial Pt/C. • Cu 2 O/CoCu-LDH as cathode in alkaline Zn-H 2 O cell is assembled to realize lighting as a power source. • Optimizing electronic structure and accelerating water dissociation kinetics boost the HER activity of LDH. Designing a highly efficient and durable electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reactions (HER) is of great significance to promote the development of green hydrogen energy. This work reports a vertical-aligned electrocatalyst of Cu 2 O/CoCu-LDH inlaid bilayer nanosheets that achieve excellent alkaline HER performance with a low overpotential of 96 mV at 10 mA cm -2 and a low Tafel slope of 76.8 mV dec -1 . Notably, Cu 2 O/CoCu-LDH outperforms Pt/C at a practical current density of 600 mA cm -2 . The structural characterizations and theory calculations revealed that the superior HER activity of Cu 2 O/CoCu-LDH is due to the distinctive morphology, optimized electronic structure and accelerated water dissociation kinetics. Remarkably, the Cu 2 O/CoCu-LDH acted as the cathode in alkaline Zn-H 2 O cell demonstrating the potential applications for H 2 generation and electricity energy simultaneously. Our work can guide the design of LDH-based electrocatalysts with outstanding HER performance.