Triggering Pt Active Sites in Basal Plane of Van der Waals PtTe₂ Materials by Amorphization Engineering for Hydrogen Evolution

Exposing active sites and optimizing their binding strength to reaction intermediates are two essential strategies to significantly improve the catalytic performance of 2D materials. However, pursuing an efficient way to achieve these goals simultaneously remains a considerable challenge. Here, using 2D PtTe2 van der Waals material with a well-defined crystal structure and atomically thin thickness as a model catalyst, it is observed that a moderate calcination strategy can promote the structural transformation of 2D crystal PtTe2 nanosheets (c-PtTe2 NSs) into oxygen-doped 2D amorphous PtTe2 NSs (a-PtTe2 NSs). The experimental and theoretical investigations cooperatively reveal that oxygen dopants can break the inherent Pt-Te covalent bond in c-PtTe2 NSs, thereby triggering the reconfiguration of interlayer Pt atoms and exposing them thoroughly. Meanwhile, the structural transformation can effectively tailor the electronic properties (e.g., the density of state near the Fermi level, d-band center, and conductivity) of Pt active sites via the hybridization of Pt 5d orbitals and O 2p orbitals. As a result, a-PtTe2 NSs with large amounts of exposed Pt active sites and optimized binding strength to hydrogen intermediates exhibit excellent activity and stability in hydrogen evolution reaction.