Designing Nanoporous Non-noble High Entropy Alloys as Efficient Catalysts for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Hydrogen represents a promising clean energy; however, the application of hydrogen energy is limited by the prohibitively expensive commercial Pt/C catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In this work, we designed non-noble high entropy alloy (HEA) catalysts of FeCoNiCuMo with diversified active centers, which have an excellent catalytic performance for HER. Density functional theory calculations indicate that Fe, Co, and Ni sites with strong adsorption of H* could facilitate water splitting, while Cu and Mo sites with weak adsorption of H* could promote the formation of H2. As a proof of concept, we synthesized nanoporous (NP) FeCoNiCuMo by ball milling and dealloying to further increase the designed active centers, resulting in an onset potential of 0 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) and overpotential of 68 mV at −10 mA cm–2, which are even comparable to that of the Pt/C catalyst. Our work highlights the great potential of NP non-noble HEA catalysts for HER and accelerates the industrial application of hydrogen energy.