Ultrathin platinum nanowires grown on single-layered nickel hydroxide with high hydrogen evolution activity

Design and synthesis of effective electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline environments is critical to reduce energy losses in alkaline water electrolysis. Here we report a hybrid nanomaterial comprising of one-dimensional ultrathin platinum nanowires grown on two-dimensional single-layered nickel hydroxide. Judicious surface chemistry to generate the fully exfoliated nickel hydroxide single layers is explored to be the key for controllable growth of ultrathin platinum nanowires with diameters of about 1.8 nm. Impressively, this hybrid nanomaterial exhibits superior electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline solution, which outperforms currently reported catalysts, and the obviously improved catalytic stability. We believe that this work may lead towards the development of single-layered metal hydroxide-based hybrid materials for applications in catalysis and energy conversion. There is extensive interest in the design of efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution. Here, the authors show that exfoliated single-layer nickel hydroxide can be used for the controllable surface growth of platinum nanowires, and evaluate the electrocatalytic performance of the composite material.