Operando Stable Palladium Hydride Nanoclusters Anchored on Tungsten Carbides Mediate Reverse Hydrogen Spillover for Hydrogen Evolution

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis holds great promise for green hydrogen production, but suffering from high loading of platinum-group metals (PGM) for large-scale deployment. Anchoring PGM-based materials on supports can not only improve the atomic utilization of active sites but also enhance the intrinsic activity. However, in practical PEM electrolysis, it is still challenging to mediate hydrogen adsorption/desorption pathways with high coverage of hydrogen intermediates over catalyst surface. Here, operando generated stable palladium (Pd) hydride nanoclusters anchored on tungsten carbide (WC_x) supports were constructed for hydrogen evolution in PEM electrolysis. Under PEM operando conditions, hydrogen intercalation induces formation of Pd hydrides (PdH_x) featuring weakened hydrogen binding energy (HBE), thus triggering reverse hydrogen spillover from WC_x (strong HBE) supports to PdH_x sites, which have been evidenced by operando characterizations, electrochemical results and theoretical studies. This PdH_x-WC_x material can be directly utilized as cathode electrocatalysts in PEM electrolysis with ultralow Pd loading of 0.022 mg cm⁻², delivering the current density of 1 A cm⁻² at the cell voltage of ~1.66 V and continuously running for 200 hours without obvious degradation. This innovative strategy via tuning the operando characteristics to mediate reverse hydrogen spillover provide new insights for designing high-performance supported PGM-based electrocatalysts.