Unveiling the Mechanisms Ruling the Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction with Mitrofanovite Pt3Te4

• Published in: The journal of physical chemistry letters Vol. 12; no. 35; pp. 8627 - 8636
• Main Authors: Boukhvalov, Danil W, Cheng, Jia, D’Olimpio, Gianluca, Bocquet, François C, Kuo, Chia-Nung, Sarkar, Anan Bari, Ghosh, Barun, Vobornik, Ivana, Fujii, Jun, Hsu, Kuan, Wang, Li-Min, Azulay, Ori, Daptary, Gopi Nath, Naveh, Doron, Lue, Chin Shan, Vorokhta, Mykhailo, Agarwal, Amit, Zhang, Lixue, Politano, Antonio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 09-09-2021
• Subjects: Letter; Physical Insights into Chemistry, Catalysis, and Interfaces
• ISSN: 1948-7185; 1948-7185
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01261

By means of electrocatalytic tests, surface-science techniques and density functional theory, we unveil the physicochemical mechanisms ruling the electrocatalytic activity of recently discovered mitrofanovite (Pt3Te4) mineral. Mitrofanovite represents a very promising electrocatalyst candidate for energy-related applications, with a reduction of costs by 47% compared to pure Pt and superior robustness to CO poisoning. We show that Pt3Te4 is a weak topological metal with the Z 2 invariant, exhibiting electrical conductivity (∼4 × 106 S/m) comparable with pure Pt. In hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the electrode based on bulk Pt3Te4 shows a very small overpotential of 46 mV at 10 mA cm–2 and a Tafel slope of 36–49 mV dec–1 associated with the Volmer–Heyrovsky mechanism. The outstanding ambient stability of Pt3Te4 also provides durability of the electrode and long-term stability of its efficient catalytic performances.