Laser fragmentation in liquid synthesis of novel palladium-sulfur compound nanoparticles as efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction

One promising way to tune the physicochemical properties of materials and optimize their performance in various potential applications is to engineer material structures at the atomic level.As is well known,the performance of Pd-based catalysts has long been constrained by surface contamination and their single structure.Here,we employed an unadulterated top-down synthesis method,known as laser fragmentation in liquid(LFL),to modify pristine Pd PS crystals and obtained a kind of metastable palladium-sulfur compound nanoparticles(LFL-Pd S NPs)as a highly efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction(HER).Laser fragmentation of the layered Pd PS crystal led to a structural reorganization at the atomic level and resulted in the formation of uniform metastable LFL-Pd S NPs.Noteworthy,the LFL-Pd S NPs show excellent electrocatalytic HER performance and stability in acidic media,with an overpotential of-66 m V at 10 m A·cm^(-2),the Tafel slope of 42 m V·dec^(-1).The combined catalytic performances of our LFL-Pd S NPs are comparable to the Pt/C catalyst for HER.This work provides a top-down synthesis strategy as a promising approach to design highly active metastable metal composite electrocatalysts for sustainable energy applications.