Highly dispersed Pt/CuO nanoclusters in N-doped porous carbon array for superior hydrogen evolution

The preparation of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts with high activity, good stability and low precious metal loading has been the focus of research. Herein, we successfully fabricated Pt/CuO nanoclusters loaded directionally on nitrogen-doped porous carbon array using MOF as precursor. DFT calculations show that Pt sites of Pt/CuO reduced hydrogen adsorption Gibbs free energy and had a higher carrier concentration, suggesting that the Pt/CuO catalyst had faster charge transfer kinetics. In particular, the optimal electrocatalyst presented excellent catalytic performance of HER with overpotential of 39 mV at 10 mA cm−2 that was better than commercial Pt/C in alkaline electrolyte and Tafel slope of 41.7 mV·dec–1.