The electrolysis of water for sustainable hydrogen producing is a crucial segment of various emerging clean-energy technologies. However, pursuing an efficient and cheap alternative catalyst to substitute state-of-the-art platinum-group electrocatalysts remains a prerequisite for the commercialization of this technology. Typically, precious-metal-free catalysts have always much lower activities towards hydrogen production than that of Pt-group catalysts. To explore high-performance catalysts, maximally exposed active sites, rapid charge transfer ability and desirable electronic configuration are essentially demanded. Herein, the fundamentals of hydrogen evolution reaction will be briefly described and the main focus will be on the interfacial engineering strategies by means of constructing defect structure, creating heterojunction, phase engineering, lattice strain control, designing hierarchical architecture and doping heteroatoms to effectively proliferate the catalytic active sites, facilitate the electron diffusion and regulate the electronic configuration of numerous transition metals and their nitrides, carbides, sulfides, phosphides as well as oxides, achieving a benchmark performance of platinum-free electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction. This review unambiguously offers proof that the conventional cheap and earth-abundant transition metal-based substances can be translated into an active water splitting catalyst by the rational and controllable interfacial designing.

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解析析氢反应电催化剂的原理、设计方法和应用

用于可持续制氢的水电解是各种新兴清洁能源技术的重要组成部分。然而，寻求一种高效且廉价的替代催化剂来替代最先进的铂族电催化剂仍然是该技术商业化的先决条件。通常，不含贵金属的催化剂的制氢活性始终比铂族催化剂低得多。为了探索高性能催化剂，本质上需要最大程度地暴露活性位点、快速电荷转移能力和理想的电子构型。本文将简要描述析氢反应的基本原理，重点关注通过构建缺陷结构、创建异质结、相工程、晶格应变控制、设计分层结构和掺杂杂原子来有效扩散析氢反应的界面工程策略。催化活性位点，促进电子扩散并调节多种过渡金属及其氮化物、碳化物、硫化物、磷化物以及氧化物的电子构型，实现析氢反应的无铂电催化剂的基准性能。该综述明确证明，传统的廉价且地球丰富的过渡金属基物质可以通过合理且可控的界面设计转化为活性水分解催化剂。