Engineering local coordination environment of atomically dispersed platinum catalyst via lattice distortion of support for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

Engineering the local coordination environment in atomically dispersed catalyst has proven to be a prospective route to boost catalyst performance for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we present the utilization of local lattice distortion of TiO₂ support to regulate the local coordination environment and electronic structures of atomically dispersed Pt catalysts, resulting in the enhanced performance toward HER. Spectral analysis uncovers an elongated Pt–O bond length, lower Pt–O coordination numbers, as well as less electron holes residing in Pt 5d orbitals for Pt species on distorted TiO₂. Density functional theory (DFT) calculation reveal that the variation might weaken the hydrogen adsorption on Pt sites and cause the optimized ΔG value of H∗. As a result, the atomically dispersed Pt catalyst displays superior HER mass activity (62.34 A mg⁻¹ Pt) and the highest turnover frequency (TOF) (56.1H₂·s⁻¹) at the 50 mV overpotential in an acid media that are 18.7 and 5.56 times higher than commercial Pt/C. The work should create a new avenue in manipulating the local coordination environment of catalysts via the lattice distortion of the support, and in pursuing desired catalytic performance.