Plasmon-enhanced hydrogen evolution on Pt-anchored titanium nitride nanowire arrays

Plasmonic materials integrated with electrochemical catalysts produce hot carriers that improve the catalytic activity of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Previous studies have mainly focused on noble metal-based plasmonic materials. Herein, an efficient catalyst comprising non-noble TiN as the plasmonic booster and Pt nanoparticles (NPs) as the cocatalyst is prepared on carbon cloth (CC) (Pt/TiN/CC) by nitridation of TiO₂ in NH₃ and electrodeposition. The HER properties are improved significantly as manifested by a small overpotential of 16 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm⁻² (η₁₀) as well as 2-fold decay in η₁₀ compared to the control experiment conducted in darkness (33 mV). To investigate the role of light-excited hot electrons in the reduction of protons to H₂, Pt/TiO_x/CC is irradiated with UV–visible light in the control experiment and the superior characteristics of Pt/TiN/CC corroborate the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) enhancement rendered from the TiN nanowire arrays. This study provides a fundamental understanding of hot electronics generated by SPR and insights into the design of non-noble electrocatalysts for HER and other applications.