Screening of electrocatalytic materials for hydrogen evolution

A general scheme for high-throughput screening of electrocatalysts is presented. By systematically exploiting a collection of theoretical and experimental materials databases, supplemented with quantum mechanical calculations, it locates systems that meet a set of pre-imposed selection criteria. As an example, the scheme is used to identify a binary “substrate-overlayer” electrocatalytic system for the hydrogen evolution reaction.

The best catalysts found in this screening are based on Cu and W. The hydrogen evolution activity of W–Cu catalysts is evaluated by means of cyclic voltammetry. It turns out to be considerably more active than any of its constituents, pure W and Cu.