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Nanosheet Supported Single-Metal Atom
Bifunctional Catalyst for Overall Water Splitting
Chongyi Ling, Li Shi, Yixin Ouyang, Xiao Cheng Zeng, and Jinlan Wang
Nano Lett., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b02518 • Publication Date (Web): 26 Jul 2017
Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on July 26, 2017

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Nanosheet Supported Single-Metal Atom
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12 Bifunctional Catalyst for Overall Water Splitting
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17 Chongyi Ling,1 Li Shi,1 Yixin Ouyang,1 Xiao Cheng Zeng,2,3* Jinlan Wang1,4*
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School of Physics, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China
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Department of Chemistry and Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience, University of
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25 Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA
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Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and
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30 Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China
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33 Synergetic Innovation Center for Quantum Effects and Applications (SICQEA), Hunan Normal
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35 University, Changsha 410081, China
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41 KEYWORDS: Boron monolayer, Single atom catalyst, Bifunctional catalyst, Electrochemical
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43 water splitting
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47 ABSTRACT: Nanosheet supported single-atom catalysts (SACs) can make full use of metal
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50 atoms and yet entail high selectivity and activity, while bifunctional catalysts can enable higher
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52 performance while lowering the cost than two separated unifunctional catalysts. Supported
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54 single-atom bifunctional catalysts are therefore of great economic interest and scientific
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57 importance. Here, based on first-principles computations, we report a design of the first single-
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atom bifunctional eletrocatalyst, namely, isolated nickel atom supported on β12 boron monolayer
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6 (Ni1/β12-BM), to achieve overall water splitting. This nanosheet supported SAC exhibits
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8 remarkable electrocatalytic performance with the computed overpotential for oxygen/hydrogen
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evolution reaction being just 0.40/0.06 V. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulation shows that
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13 the SAC can survive up to 800 K elevated temperature, while enacts a high energy barrier of
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15 1.68 eV to prevent isolated Ni atoms from clustering. A viable experimental route for the
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18 synthesis of Ni1/β12-BM SAC is demonstrated from computer simulation. The desired nanosheet
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20 supported single-atom bifunctional catalysts not only show great potential for achieving overall
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22 water splitting, but also offers cost-effective opportunities for advancing clean energy
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25 technology.
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29 Introduction
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32 Miniaturization of the metal catalysts can be a cost-effective way to boost their catalytic
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34 performance by enhancing the surface area/volume ratio, strengthening the selectivity toward a
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37 special product, as well as improving their intrinsic catalytic activity.1-8 Nanosheet supported
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39 SACs are the ultimate low-end limit for metal particles. Over the past few years, SACs have
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attracted enormous attention owning to their distinct advantages in full use of all metal atoms,
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44 their homogenous active sites with distinct selectivity, as well as their much improved catalytic
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46 activity over conventional metal nanoparticles.9-12 However, reduced metal-particle size can also
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49 result in increased surface free energy, thereby making the SACs more prone to aggregation into
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51 metal clusters.10 A strong support that can anchor the individual metal atom firmly to prevent
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53 metal atoms from aggregation is crucial to maintain high performance of SACs. To date, various
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metal oxides (such as FeOx), crystalline metal surfaces, graphene sheets, metal-organic
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6 frameworks, among others, have been investigated as the support for SACs.9, 12-16
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8 For overall water splitting, bifunctional catalysts always show higher performance than two
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separate unifunctional catalysts, as the best working conditions for the two unifunctional
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13 catalysts are generally not the same.17, 18 Moreover, bifunctional catalysts can lower the product
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15 cost due to the less usage of equipment and less preparation and optimization procedures
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18 compared with two separate unifunctional catalysts. Hence, the development of bifunctional
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20 catalysts for the overall water splitting has gained increasing attention. Several candidates have
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22 been proposed in the past few years.17, 19-26 However, to our knowledge, nanosheet supported
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25 single-atom bifunctional catalysts have not been reported in the literature.
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28 In this letter, we present a computer-aided design of the first nanosheet supported
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bifunctional single-atom catalyst, namely, β12-boron monolayer (β12-BM) supported nickel atom,
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33 to achieve the overall electrochemical water splitting. To this end, we have examined six
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35 possible SAC systems, TM1/β12-BM (TM = Ti, V, Mn, Fe, Co, and Ni), out of 18 candidates.
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38 Among the six systems, the Ni1/β12-BM exhibits high oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity
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40 coupled with low overpotential of 0.40 V, and an excellent hydrogen evolution reaction (HER)
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42 performance with the Gibbs free-energy change of hydrogen adsorption being 0.06 eV. Ab initio
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45 molecular dynamics simulation indicates that the β12-boron monolayer supported bifunctional
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47 SAC presents high stability up to 800 K. Specifically, the diffusion barrier of Ni atom on β12-BM
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amounts to 1.68 eV, high enough to prevent Ni atoms from clustering. A possible experimental
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52 route to synthesize the Ni1/β12-BM SAC is elucidated through computer simulation, with using
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54 the NiCl2 as a precursor.
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58 Computational details
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The first-principles computations were performed using the projector augmented wave
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6 (PAW) method27 as implemented in the Vienna ab initio simulation package (VASP 5.4).28, 29
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8 The generalized gradient approximation in the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) form30, 31 and a
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cut-off energy of 600 eV for plane-wave basis set were adopted. The convergence threshold was
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13 10-5 eV and 0.03 eV/Å for energy and force, respectively. A vacuum space of at least 15 Å was
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15 used so that the interaction between two periodic units can be neglected. Supercells consisting of
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18 4 × 3 × 1 unit cells were used and the Brillouin zones were sampled by Monkhorst-Pack k-point
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20 meshes. Both thermal and dynamical stabilities of the catalyst were examined by using ab initio
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22 molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulation and climbing nudged elastic band method32, 33
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25 respectively. The HER and OER performances were evaluated by computing the reaction free
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27 energy (∆G) based on spin-polarized calculation for each step via the equation
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∆G = ∆E + ∆EZPE – T∆S (1)
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32 where the ∆E is the adsorption energy of a given group, ∆EZPE and ∆S are the difference in the
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34 zero-point energy and the difference in entropy, respectively, between the adsorbed state and the
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37 corresponding free-standing state. The calculated EZPE and S are presented in Table S3. More
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39 computational details are given in the Supporting Information.
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42 Results and Discussion
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46 Boron monolayers have been recently synthesized in the laboratory, and become new
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48 members of two-dimensional atomic-layered materials.34, 35 Typically, BMs are composed of
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electron-deficient hexagonal holes and electron-rich trigonal holes . The hexagonal-hole
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53 regions are expected to bind metal atoms tightly, whereas the trigonal-hole regions cannot. Such
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55 special geometric structures enable BMs as a unique support for SACs. Indeed, our recent work
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has shown that BMs with hexagonal holes, such as β12, χ3, α1 and β1 BMs, exhibit high intrinsic
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activity for HER.37 Thus, if a single metal atom anchored on BMs also presents high OER
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6 performance, the SAC would be able to serve as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for the overall
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8 water splitting (Figure 1a).
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31 Figure 1. (a) Schematic of the single-atom, bifunctional catalyst for overall water splitting. The hexagonal
32 holes of BMs are electron-deficient and are used as supports to anchor metal atoms. If a SAC can present high
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34 activity for OER, such a SAC is a “single atom, bifunctional” catalyst for overall water splitting as the surface
35 B atoms are highly active sites for HER. (b) Elementary reactions of OER and HER and the structures of the
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37 adsorbed states for each species, including *H, *OH, *O and *OOH.
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40 Although tens of BM structures have been predicted theoretically,38 today, only three
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polymorphs of BM (trigonal, β12 and χ3) have been realized experimentally.34, 35
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45 trigonal BM was found to be electron-rich,36 only β12 and χ3 BMs that contain hexagonal holes
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47 are examined as potential support for SAC in this study. First, we compute the adsorption
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energies for all first-row transition metal atoms on the hexagonal hole of β12 and χ3 BMs whose
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52 structures are presented in Figure S1 in the Supporting Information (SI). As shown in Table S1,
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54 all the TM atoms present rather negative adsorption energies on both BMs, indicating strong
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57 interaction between the TM atoms and BMs. Moreover, the adsorption energy of β12 BM is
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always more negative than that of χ3 BM, suggesting that β12 BM is likely a better support for
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6 anchoring TM atoms.
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38 Figure 2. Free energy diagram for (a) Ti1/β12-BM, (b) V1/β12-BM, (c) Mn1/β12-BM, (d) Fe1/β12-BM, (e)
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Co1/β12-BM and (f) Ni1/β12-BM for OER at zero potential (U = 0), where the elementary reaction with ∆G in
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41 red represents the potential-determining step.
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44 For SACs, one major issue is that isolated metal atoms tend to aggregate into clusters due to
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46 the high surface free energy.10 To assess the stability of SACs, we compute the adsorption
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energy of TM atom on BM (Eb), the cohesive energy of TM atoms in their metal crystals (Ecoh),
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51 as well as the energy difference ∆Eb = Eb - Ecoh (see Table S1). The negative ∆Eb means that the
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53 TM atom on the BM surface is energetically more favorable than in the bulk form. As the TM
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clusters are intrinsically less energetically favorable than the metal crystals,39 the single TM
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atoms are unlikely to aggregate into clusters even when ∆Eb is close to zero. We set a criterion
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6 for judging the stability of a system under consideration, that is, ∆Eb < 0.15 eV. Only 6 TM1/β12-
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8 BM systems, i.e., TM = Ti, V, Mn, Fe, Co and Ni, meet the criterion (see Figure S2).
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12 Next, we investigate the OER performance for the 6 potential TM1/β12-BM catalysts. The
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14 whole OER entails four elementary steps: i) a H2O molecule dissociates into an OH group, which
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16 is adsorbed on the catalyst surface (*OH); ii) the *OH further dissociates into O group (*O); iii)
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19 the *O reacts with another H2O molecule and produces an OOH group (*OOH); iv) the final
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21 product, O2, forms and is then released. In every elementary step, the release of an H+ cation and
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23 an electron always occurs (Figure 1b). The overpotential of OER can be obtained via calculating
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26 the reaction free energy of each elementary step (see details in SI). As shown in Figure 2a and
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28 2b, the calculated ∆GOH are rather negative, -1.74 and -1.73 eV for Ti1/β12-BM and V1/β12-BM,
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respectively, indicating the strong binding between OH and the TM atom. The final step, where
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33 the gas-phase O2 produced desorbs from the catalyst surface, is the potential-determining step
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35 because it is very difficult to proceed. The calculated overpotential (η) is 2.12 and 2.16 V for
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38 Ti1/β12-BM and V1/β12-BM catalyst, respectively, both being too high to catalyze the OER
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40 efficiently. In addition, the high binding capacities would make the catalysts easily poisoned.
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42 Hence, Ti1/β12-BM and V1/β12-BM are ruled out as good catalysts for OER. For Mn1/β12-BM,
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45 Fe1/β12-BM and Co1/β12-BM catalysts, the third step, where an adsorbed O atom reacts with a
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47 H2O molecule to form a *OOH, is the potential-determining step (Figure 2c to 2e). However, the
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calculated η is still high: 1.92, 1.31 and 0.85 V for Mn1/β12-BM, Fe1/β12-BM and Co1/β12-BM,
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52 respectively. Thus, these three systems are not ideal as catalysts for OER either. Remarkably,
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54 only Ni1/β12-BM is predicted to possess favorable overpotential of 0.40 eV for OER, and the
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second step, where an adsorbed OH group dissociates into *O, is the potential-determining step
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(Figure 2f). To evaluate the accuracy of our results, revised-PBE (RPBE) functional which
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6 describes the binding energies with sufficient accuracy is also employed.40 As shown in Figure
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8 S3, the RPBE results are consistent with those PBE values (the calculated overpotentials are 0.41
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and 0.40 V, respectively), indicative of the reliability of PBE for current systems. Besides, the
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13 calculated ∆GOH is 0.55 eV, implying that the catalyst is hard to get poisoned. As a further
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15 support, Gibbs free energy of the reaction for the Ni oxide formation on Ni1/β12-BM
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18 (Ni1 /β12 -BM(s) + O2 (g) = β12 -BM(s) + Ni4 O4 (s)) is calculated as a function of O2 partial
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21 pressure (pO ) under 298.15 K. Ni4O4 cluster is used as the prototype, where the structure is
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23 constructed based on its bulk form.41 As shown in Figure S4, the formation of Ni4O4 cluster
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26 would occur if pO exceeds 2.8 × 1027 Pa. This high pressure indicates that oxidation of Ni on
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28 β12-BM is extremely difficult, suggesting long time stability of Ni1/β12-BM under operation. We
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31 therefore conclude that Ni1/β12-BM is a highly promising catalyst for OER.
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34 Insights into distinct OER performance for different catalysts can guide us to improve the
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catalytic performance and design better electrocatalysts. As presented in Section 1 in SI, the ∆G
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39 for each step is actually determined by the adsorption energy of *OH, *O and *OOH. That is to
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41 say, the distinct OER performance stems from the different binding strength of the three
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44 adsorption species on different catalysts. The d band center (εd), which has been widely used to
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46 describe the binding strength of adsorbates on different surfaces,42-47 is thus computed. As shown
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48 in Figure 3a, a clear shift of εd to low-energy level is seen with the increase of the atomic number
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51 of TM atoms (from Ti to Ni), implying that the binding strength of *OH, *O and *OOH will
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53 decrease accordingly. This trend is consistent with our calculation results shown in Figure 3b,
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where a negative correlation between ∆G and εd is observed. More interestingly, ∆G and the
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corresponding εd for each adsorption group presents a linear relation (Figure 3b), indicating that
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39 Figure 3. (a) Calculated PDOS of d band of the TM atoms in TM1/β12-BM, TM=Ti, V, Mn, Fe, Co and Ni.
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41 The d band center is marked by the red dash line and the Fermi level is set as zero. (b) Free energy of each
42 species (OH, O and OOH) and (c) the potential of each reaction as a function of the d band center, where the
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44 shadow area is the theoretical overpotential under different energy level of d band center.
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47 The correlation between the potential of each elementary step and εd is further shown in
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49 Figure 3c. For metals with a relatively high εd (> -1.68 eV), such as Ti and V, the binding
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51 strength between the reactant species and the TM atoms can be rather strong. As a result, the
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54 reactant tends to be trapped on the surface. So the desorption of O2 would be very difficult and
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56 the last step of OER becomes the potential-determining step. On the other hand, when the εd is
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relatively low (< -3.19 eV), the interaction between the reactants and catalysts would be too
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6 weak to carry out the subsequent reactions. In this case, the first step of OER, where a H2O
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8 molecule is adsorbed on the catalyst and dissociates into *OH, H+ and e-, is the potential-
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determining step. A high overpotential is inevitably needed under both circumstances. When εd is
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13 within a moderate range (from -1.68 to -3.19 eV), the binding strength of reactants would be
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15 neither too strong nor too weak. As a result, the second or the third step will be the potential-
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18 determining step. Meanwhile, the sum of potential of the second and third step is close to a
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20 constant (~3.20 V), leading to the lowest overpotential when the potential of the second and third
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22 step is equal. As seen from Figure 3c, the blue line (second step) and the red line (third step)
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25 intersect at εd = -2.82 eV, at which the catalyst would have the lowest theoretical overpotential
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27 for OER. The detailed scheme discussed above offers a strategy for improving the OER
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performance of SAC, that is, tuning εd to be as close as possible to -2.82 eV.
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33 As a comparison, we also evaluate the OER performance for the pure β12-BM. As shown in
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35 Figure S5a, all 10 possible sites, including 3 top sites (T1, T2 and T3), 5 bridge sites (B1, B2,
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38 B3, B4 and B5) and 2 hollow sites (H1 and H2), are taken into account. After full structural
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40 relaxation, the OH group on B3 and B4 sites moves to the neighboring top sites; OH on H1 and
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42 H2 sites drifts to the adjacent bridge sites; OOH on T1, B1 and B2 sites dissociates into *OH and
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45 *O, which are respectively adsorbed on two different sites. Hence, only B5, T2 and T3 sites can
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47 possibly serve as the sites for OER. However, these three sites present rather poor OER activity
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as the corresponding calculated overpotentials are 2.08, 1.27 and 1.00 V for B5, T2 and T3 sites,
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21 Figure 4. (a) T1, T2 sites on the top of B atoms and TNi site on the top of Ni atom in Ni1/β12-BM and (b)
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23 corresponding ∆GH as compared with that of T1 and T2 sites on pure β12-BM.
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25 Our recent work has shown that the basal plane of pristine β12-BM is highly active for
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28 HER.37 Will the HER performance of β12-BM be retained or even improved upon the adsorption
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30 of Ni atom? To address this question, we select the top sites of B atoms which are directly
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connected to Ni atom [T1(Ni1/β12-BM) and T2(Ni1/β12-BM) sites in Figure 4a], and the top site
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35 of Ni (TNi) to evaluate the catalytic activity for HER. As displayed in Figure 4b, the calculated
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37 ∆GH of TNi site is quite positive (0.53 eV), suggesting that the proton-electron-transfer process is
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40 difficult to proceed. So the TNi site is not an active site for HER. For T1(Ni1/β12-BM) and T2(Ni-
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42 1/β12-BM) sites, the calculated ∆GH are 0.06 and 0.20 eV, respectively, indicating that both sites
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44 can give rise to high catalytic activity for HER. As a comparison, ∆GH of T1 and T2 sites in pure
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47 β12-BM are also included in the figure. For T1 site, the ∆GH of Ni1/β12-BM is much smaller than
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49 that of pure β12-BM, while T2 site gives similar HER activity upon the adsorption of Ni atom. As
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51 a whole, the Ni1/β12-BM shows improved catalytic activity for HER since the solid lines (Ni1/β12-
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54 BM) are closer to zero than the dashed lines (pure β12-BM). The high HER performance
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56 illustrated here and the excellent OER activity proposed above indicate that the Ni1/β12-BM is a
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promising bifunctional catalyst for the overall water splitting. It is worth noting that most of
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6 recent produced bifuncational electrocatalysts for the overall water splitting are also Ni-based
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8 materials (nickel phosphides, nitrides, sulfides and oxides),17-19, 22, 48-50 in line with our results
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that Ni1/β12-BM is active for both HER and OER, whereas other β12-BM based SACs are not.
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13 We conclude that the Ni1/β12-BM is a promising bifunctional SAC.
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16 The influence of Ni adsorption on the HER activity of β12-BM can be ascribed in two
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19 aspects. First, the adsorption of Ni atom can make the flat BM surface curved and the surface of
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21 Ni1/β12-BM around the Ni atom is actually under tensile strain (Figure 4a and Table S2),
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23 resulting in decreased ∆GH according to previous study.51 Second, the adsorption of Ni atom can
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26 induce redistribution of the charge, where the positive/negative charge transfer leads to the
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28 increase/decrease of ∆GH.51, 52 For the T1 site, the charge decreases from 3.36 to 3.20 e with the
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adsorption of Ni atom. Therefore, the combined effects of tensile strain and electron loss render
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33 the T1 site in Ni1/β12-BM with a much lower ∆GH than that of pure β12-BM (0.06 eV vs 0.23
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35 eV). On the contrary, the adsorption of Ni atom can make the T2 site gain electrons, from 2.81 to
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38 2.96 e. Thus, the competitive effect of tensile strain and electron gain results in the ∆GH of
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40 T2(Ni1/β12-BM) site almost unchanged, compared with that of pure β12-BM (0.20 eV vs 0.19
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42 eV).
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46 Besides the predicted high catalytic activity, the likelihood of experimental realization is
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48 also a crucial issue. For the synthesis of SACs, wet chemistry method is a suitable way to
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achieve highly dispersed single atoms.9, 10, 53 In such a process, an appropriate precursor and
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53 support are the two key factors. To examine the possibility of experimental realization of Ni1/β12-
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55 BM, we select NiCl2, an important Ni source in industry, as the metal precursor to simulate the
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synthetic route for Ni1/β12-BM as follows (Figure 5a):
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NiCl2 + * → *NiCl2 (2)
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6 *NiCl2 + 2H3O+ + 2e- → *Ni(HCl)2 + 2H2O (3)
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8 *Ni(HCl)2 → *Ni + 2HCl (4)
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10 where the * donates a hexagonal hole of β12-BM.
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44 Figure 5. (a) Top and side view of designed synthetic route for Ni1/β12-BM. (b) Snapshot of atomic
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configuration of ab initio molecular dynamics simulations for the synthetic process of Ni1/β12-BM. The upper
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47 panel is the initial structure and the lower is final structure. The model we used here includes a β12-BM
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49 supercell consisting of 4 × 3 × 1 unit cells, 3 NiCl2 molecules, and 28 H2O molecules. The simulation is run for
50 2 ps, where the temperature increases from 0 to 350 K within the first 1.4 ps and then keeps at 350 K for 0.6
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52 ps. (c) Minimum-energy pathway of the Ni atoms between two hexagonal holes on the surface of β12-BM. The
53 pink, blue, green, white and red lines or balls represent the B, Ni, Cl, H and O atoms respectively.
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The first step is the spontaneous adsorption of a free NiCl2 on the β12-BM with the
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6 adsorption energy of -1.44 eV. Next, the Cl- ions in the adsorbed NiCl2/β12-BM interact with H+
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8 ions in the solution, forming two H-Cl bonds. Our calculations show that when approaching to
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NiCl2/β12-BM, a H3O+ ion will dissociate into a H2O molecule and an H+ ion while forming a
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13 bond with Cl- ion without encountering any energy barrier. The adsorption of H+ on NiCl2/β12-
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15 BM results in the Cl-Ni bond-length increase from 2.18 to 2.49 Å, an indication of weakening of
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18 the binding strength of Cl-Ni bond. The HCl groups actually bind very weakly to the Ni atom,
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20 with a binding energy of -0.12 eV, suggesting that the HCl groups can be easily removed from
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22 the surface. Thus, the Ni1/β12-BM could be obtained. We further perform ab initio molecular
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25 dynamics simulations as illustrated in Figure 5b. It is observed that NiCl2 in the solution will
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27 adsorb on the surface of β12-BM, followed by desorption of Cl- ions, and the ultimate formation
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of Ni1/β12-BM system within 2 ps at the temperature of 350 K. These simulations are consistent
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32 with our design described above, suggesting that the synthesis of Ni1/β12-BM through such an
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34 approach is likely realized in the laboratory.
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38 Once dispersed single atoms are realized on the surface of BM, the BM support will anchor
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40 the single atoms and prevent the aggregation of the TM atoms from forming clusters due to the
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42 favorable ∆Eb value of 0.10 eV discussed previously. We have also computed the energy
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45 difference between the formations of clusters and dispersed single atoms on β12-BM with 3 and 4
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47 Ni atoms. As shown in Figure S6, the formation of dispersed single atoms is energetically
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favorable, by 0.7 and 0.8 eV per Ni atom, compared to the formation of a cluster of 3 and 4 Ni
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52 atoms on β12-BM, respectively. In other words, the probability of cluster formation is on the
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54 order of 10-12/10-14 for the systems of β12-BM with 3/4 Ni atoms, based on the Arrhenius
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formula. Furthermore, AIMD simulations were performed to show that an adsorbed Ni clusters
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on β12-BM can rapidly disperse into isolated Ni atoms very quickly (within 1 and 2.5 ps under
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6 800 K for Ni3 and Ni4, respectively; see Figure S7). Moreover, the dispersed single atoms are
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8 tightly anchored on the hexagonal holes instead of aggregating into clusters even the simulation
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time is as long as 10 ps. The minimum-energy pathway for the Ni atom moving between two
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32, 33
13 hexagonal holes is also computed by using the climbing nudged elastic band method . As
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15 shown in Figure 5c, relocation of the Ni atom needs to overcome an energy barrier of 1.68 eV.
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18 All these computational evidences show that the adsorbed Ni atom can hardly diffuse to form Ni
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20 clusters on β12-BM. The Ni1/β12-BM is, indeed, a highly robust single-atom catalyst.
21
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23 Conclusion
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27 In summary, we have designed a nanosheet supported single-atom catalyst, Ni1/β12-BM,
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29 with excellent catalytic activity for both HER and OER. The computed overpotential of Ni1/β12-
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BM for OER is only 0.40 V. A principle for improving the OER performance of SACs is
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34 provided, that is, by adjusting the εd to be close to -2.82 eV. Moreover, the ∆GH for Ni1/β12-BM
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36 can reach to 0.06 eV, showing higher activity and performance than bare β12-BM for HER. The
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39 enhanced HER activity of Ni1/β12-BM is attributed to the cooperative or competitive effect of the
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41 tensile strain, and charge transfer due to the Ni adsorption. The strong binding strength, high
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43 diffusion barrier, and excellent thermal stability suggest that Ni1/β12-BM is a very stable single-
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46 atom catalyst. Such a catalyst may be synthesized by using NiCl2 as precursor. Overall, its high
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48 stability, excellent OER and HER performance endow Ni1/β12-BM a highly promising SAC for
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cost-effective water splitting, thereby offers high possibility for clean energy production.
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54 ASSOCIATED CONTENT
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Supporting Information. The details about the calculations of HER and OER overpotentials;
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6 structures of single metal atom supported on β12- and χ3-BMs; screening of promising SACs;
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8 OER activity of Ni1/β12-BM calculated by using RPBE functional; Gibbs free energy of the
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11 formation of Ni4O4 on Ni1/β12-BM as a function of pO ; OER performance of pure β12-BM;
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13 structures and adsorption energies of clusters as well as dispersed single atoms; AIMD
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16 simulation of β12-BM with the adsorption of Ni clusters are included in the Supporting
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18 Information.
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21 AUTHOR INFORMATION
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23
24 Corresponding Author
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27 *Email: jlwang@seu.edu.cn (J.W.); xzeng1@unl.edu (X.C.Z.)
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29
30 Note
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33 The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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35
36
37 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
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40 This work is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (2017YFA0204800), the
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42 National Science Fund (21525311, 21373045), Jiangsu 333 project (BRA2016353), the
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Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Scientific Research Foundation
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47 of Graduate School of Southeast University (YBJJ1670) in China. The authors thank the
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49 computational resources at the SEU and National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin. XCZ was
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supported by a State Key R&D Fund of China (2016YFA0200604) to USTC.
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A nanosheet supported single atom, bifunctional catalyst, Ni1/β12¬-BM is designed for the first
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5 time, which show excellent HER and OER activities with overpotentials of just 0.06 and 0.40 V.
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