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Recent progress on high-entropy materials for electrocatalytic water splitting applications

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A Correction to this article was published on 21 August 2021

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Abstract

Advanced materials for electrocatalytic water splitting applications have been sought-after considering both environmental and economic requirements. However, the traditional materials design concept limits the exploration of high-performance catalysts. The born of a materials design concept based on multiple elements, high-entropy materials, provides a promising path to break the shackles of compositional design in materials science. A number of high-entropy materials were reported to show remarkable properties for electrocatalytic water splitting applications. High-entropy materials were widely confirmed to be one kind of the best electrocatalysts for water splitting applications. Due to the synergy of multiple metal components, they show excellent catalytic activity. Several nontraditional methods were developed and reported to prepare high-performance high-entropy materials. This review article presents the recent progress on high-entropy materials for electrocatalytic water splitting applications. Moreover, it presents the research interests and future prospects in this field.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Reproduced with permission from Ref. [7]. Copyright 2020, Elsevier

Fig. 4

Copyright 2018, American Association for the Advancement of Science. c Digital images of the samples before and during CTS synthesis. Representative microstructures of the obtained HEA-Co25Mo45 NPs loaded onto carbon nanofibers. Reproduced with permission Ref. [80]. Copyright 2019, Springer Nature

Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Reproduced with permission from Ref. [97]. Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH. b Well-crystallized PdFeCoNiCu NPs with nano sized distributions. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [101]. Copyright 2021, RSC. c TEM images of the dealloyed senary NP-HEA at different magnifications with the energy disperse spectroscopy (EDS) mapping. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [99]. Copyright 2021, RSC. d Structural characterization of high entropy metal sulfide (HEMS) (CrMnFeCoNi)Sx NPs. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [102]. Copyright 2021, Wiley-VCH

Fig. 7

Reproduced with permission from Ref. [103]. Copyright 2020, Wiley-VCH

Fig. 8

Reproduced with permission from Ref. [104]. Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH. b Microstructure and electrocatalytic performance of nano-sized Pt18Ni26Fe15Co14Cu27/C and Pt/C for HER in 1 mol·L−1 KOH electrolyte. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [105]. Copyright 2020, Springer Nature

Fig. 9

Reproduced with permission from Ref. [107]. Copyright 2021, Wiley-VCH. b Electrocatalytic performance of the HEI for HER in 1 mol·L−1 KOH solutions. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [108]. Copyright 2020, Wiley-VCH. c Electrocatalytic performance of the CoCeNiFeZnCuOx nanoplates in 1 mol·L−1 KOH solutions and the theoretical calculation of OER. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [111]. Copyright 2020, ACS. d Electrochemical performance of K1–xNax(MgMnFeCoNi)F3 compared with IrO2. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [112]. Copyright 2020, ACS

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the 333 Projects of Jiangsu Province, China (Grant No. BRA2018045), the Industry-University Research Cooperation Project of Jiangsu Province, China (Grant No. BY2018194) and Metasequoia Faculty Research Funding of Nanjing Forestry University (Grant No. 163040160). Zong-Han Xie acknowledges the support provided by the Australian Research Council Discovery Projects.

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  1. Wen-Yi Huo and Shi-Qi Wang contributed equally to this paper.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China

    Wen-Yi Huo, Wen-Han Zhu & Jian-Qing Jiang

  2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China

    Shi-Qi Wang, Ze-Ling Zhang, Feng Fang & Jian-Qing Jiang

  3. School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia

    Zong-Han Xie

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  1. Wen-Yi Huo
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Huo, WY., Wang, SQ., Zhu, WH. et al. Recent progress on high-entropy materials for electrocatalytic water splitting applications. Tungsten 3, 161–180 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42864-021-00084-8

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