Hydrogen are widely recognized as one of the next generation main energy source such as fuel-cell mobility. Currently, the industrial production method are mainly based on so-call water-gas shift reaction which requires also high energy consumption. Green hydrogen which are produced from electrolysis are growing in the potion of global hydrogen source. Search for cheap and abundant alternatives to Pt for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) has led to many efforts to develop new catalysts. To our knowledge, no earth-abundant catalyst material comes close to Pt in terms of intrinsic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction. Therefore, one practical strategy is to expose acitve sites as many as possible to increase the turnover frequency (TOF), which is defined as the number of molecules (e.g. H2) produced per second per site. In this project, we investigate the strategy to utilize so-call Single atom alloys (SAAs) as a model system for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in acid electrolyte. SAAs are a type of single- site catalyst generally comprised of reactive dopants atomically isolated in a less reactive metal host. The strong host–dopant interactions that lead to mixing are responsible for the thermal stability of SAAs in terms of keeping the dopant sites isolated. The simple and very well-defined nature of the active sites in SAAs makes understanding reaction mechanisms relatively easy and enables a new approach to the rational design of SAA catalysts via complementary surface science model studies and theory. Our fundamental research will contribute to understand the process of hydrogen adsorption, activation, and generation on single Pt atoms, in the long term, in order to rational design of next generation of electrocatalyst.
