Nitrogen-doped tungsten carbide nanoarray as an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for water splitting in acid
Open accessAbstract
Tungsten carbide is one of the most promising electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction, although it exhibits sluggish kinetics due to a strong tungsten-hydrogen bond. In addition, tungsten carbide’s catalytic activity toward the oxygen evolution reaction has yet to be reported. Here, we introduce a superaerophobic nitrogen-doped tungsten carbide nanoarray electrode exhibiting high stability and activity toward hydrogen evolution reaction as well as driving oxygen evolution efficiently in acid. Nitrogen-doping and nanoarray structure accelerate hydrogen gas release from the electrode, realizing a current density of −200 mA cm−2 at the potential of −190 mV vs. reversible hydrogen electrode, which manifest one of the best non-noble metal catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction. Under acidic conditions (0.5 M sulfuric acid), water splitting catalyzed by nitrogen-doped tungsten carbide nanoarray starts from about 1.4 V, and outperforms most other water splitting catalysts.
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Nitrogen-doped tungsten carbide electrode with belt-like nanostructures exhibits superaerophobicity: bubble contact angle 163.5°, average detached bubble size 5.5 μm, and bubble adhesion force less than 1.2 μN.
“Han et al. [161] proposed a nitrogen-doped tungsten carbide electrode with belt-like nanostructures which shows superaerophobicity, as shown in first and second image of Fig. 14c. Thanks to the unique array of nano-belts, the electrode exhibits extremely strong superaerophobicity: the bubble contact angle is as high as 163.5°, the average size of detached bubbles is only 5.5 μm, and the bubble”
From Advances in Surface/Interface Engineering of Under-Water Superaerophobic Electrodes for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction by Manipulating of Bubbles (2026) · cites this paper as [161]
The Results sections on synthesis and bubble behavior describe an N-doped WC nanobelt array with superaerophobic bubble release. Bubble behavior reports a contact angle of 163° and an almost undetectable adhesion force, but our copy does not state the claimed 163.5°, average detached-bubble size of 5.5 μm, or force threshold of less than 1.2 μN. No page numbers are available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Han, N., Yang, K. R., Lu, Z., Li, Y., Xu, W., Gao, T., Cai, Z., Zhang, Y., Batista, V. S., Liu, W., & Sun, X.
- Affiliations
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering (CN)
- Yale University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Liu, Wen
- Sun, Xiaoming
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2018-03-02
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 924-924
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5834627
- OpenAlex
- W2795226894
- Cited by
- 766
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 37 · 2025: 66 · 2024: 101 · 2023: 90 · 2022: 114 · 2021: 105 · 2020: 114 · 2019: 108 · 2018: 30
- FWCI
- 20.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy (DESC0001059)
- Northwestern University
- National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Office of Science (DESC0001059)
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
- Basic Energy Sciences (DESC0001059, SC0001059)
- Argonne National Laboratory (DE-SC0001059)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Fuel Cells and Related Materials
- Keywords
- bifunctional electrocatalysts, hydrogen evolution reaction, oxygen evolution reaction, water splitting, acid electrolysis, non-noble metal catalysts, sulfuric acid
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