Recent progress of transition metal carbides/nitrides for electrocatalytic water splitting

Abstract Hydrogen is considered as a potential alternate energy to fossil fuels in the future. However, no matter in hydrogen production, storage, transportation or application, there are still huge challenges hindering the development of hydrogen energy. Transition metal carbides (TMCs) and nitrides (TMNs) have been received widespread attention in electrocatalytic water splitting to obtain hydrogen due to its noble-metal-like characteristic. In this review, we make a basic introduction including the structure, physical properties, and common prepared method of TMCs/TMNs. Then briefly introduce the reaction mechanism and evaluation criteria of electrochemical water splitting. After that, this paper reviews the recent progress of in the development of transition metal carbides and nitrides which discussion focused on the different modification methods such as nanostructuring, heteroatom doping, heterostructure construction and defect engineering. Furthermore, this review summarizes the electrocatalytic performances of recent reported TMCs and TMNs in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and overall water splitting. Finally, we conclude several effective strategies on the catalysts design and raise challenges remained on the electrocatalytic water splitting.