Effects of Intrinsic Defects in Pt-Based Carbon Supports on Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Carbon material has widely been utilized in the synthesis of efficient carbon-supported Pt (Pt/C) catalysts, in which the structural properties greatly influence the electrocatalytic performances of Pt/C catalysts. However, the effects of intrinsic defects in carbon supports on the performance of the alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) have not been systematically investigated. Herein, porous carbon supports with different degrees of intrinsic defects were prepared by a simple template-assisted strategy, and the resulting samples were systematically studied by various analytical methods. The results suggested that the presence of abundant intrinsic defects (vacancy and topological defects) in the carbon support was advantageous in terms of favoring the dispersion and anchoring of Pt species, promoting electron transfer between Pt atoms and the carbon support, and tuning the electronic states of Pt species. These features improved the HER performance of Pt/C catalysts. Compared to the nontemplate-assisted carbon-supported Pt catalyst (Pt/NTC) with an overpotential of 178 mV, the optimized template-assisted carbon-supported Pt catalyst (Pt/TC) exhibited a lower overpotential of 58 mV at 10 mA cm^-2. Besides, the Pt/TC catalyst displayed better HER durability than the Pt/NTC catalyst owing to its strong metal-support interaction. The DFT calculations confirmed the important role played by intrinsic defects (vacancy and topological defects) in stabilizing Pt atoms, with Pt-C3 coordination identified as the most favorable structure for improving the HER performance of Pt. Overall, novel insights on the significant contribution of intrinsic defects in porous carbon supports on the HER performances of Pt/C catalysts were provided, useful for future design and fabrication of advanced carbon-supported catalysts or other carbon-based electrode materials.