High-dispersion Ultrafine Shell-like Nano-Pt with Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Evolved via Metal Boron Organic Polymers

Hydrogen is considered the most promising sustainable and economical energy source that can be used on a large scale as an alternative to fossil fuels, but its production requires additional catalysts. As the outstanding catalyst in hydrogen evolution reaction, increasing the surface atomic ratio of Pt clusters can further improve its catalytic performance for hydrogen evolution reaction. Here, using metal boron organic polymers (MBOPs) as bifunctional precursors (both reducing and self-supporting properties), a new approach to rapidly large-scale preparation of supported Pt-based catalysts (Pt/MBOPs) with hydrogen evolution activity and stability is presented. First, the Pt nanoparticles in Pt/MBOPs with high dispersion and small particle size showed excellent catalytic performance in electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (E-HER), with the overpotential as low as 22.8 mV (at 10 mA cm-2) and the Tafel slope only 56 mV dec-1. In addition, Pt/MBOPs also shows extraordinary performance in the decomposition of ammonia borane (a hydrogen storage chemical), and the TOF from ammonia borane to H2 is as high as 1654.9 molH2 molPt-1 min-1. It is worth noting that Pt/MBOPs shows outstanding stability in electrochemical water splitting to hydrogen and ammonia borane hydrolysis, and is an efficient catalyst in industrial production or the immediate hydrogen production field.