Electrochemical water splitting is considered as a promising approach to produce clean and sustainable hydrogen fuel. As a new class of nanomaterials with high ratio of surface atoms and tunable composition and electronic structure, metal clusters are promising candidates as catalysts. Here, a new strategy is demonstrated to synthesize active and stable Pt-based electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution by confining Pt clusters in hollow mesoporous carbon spheres (Pt5 /HMCS). Such a structure would effectively stabilize the Pt clusters during the ligand removal process, leading to remarkable electrocatalytic performance for hydrogen production in both acidic and alkaline solutions. Particularly, the optimal Pt5 /HMCS electrocatalyst exhibits 12 times the mass activity of Pt in commercial Pt/C catalyst with similar Pt loading. This study exemplifies a simple yet effective approach to improve the cost effectiveness of precious-metal-based catalysts with stabilized metal clusters.

中文翻译：

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将亚纳米级的Pt团簇限制在空心的中孔碳球中，以增强氢的释放活性。

电化学水分解被认为是生产清洁且可持续的氢燃料的有前途的方法。作为一类新的具有高表面原子比和可调谐组成以及电子结构的纳米材料，金属簇有望成为催化剂。在此，通过限制空心介孔碳球中的Pt团簇（Pt5 / HMCS），证明了一种新的策略可合成活性和稳定的基于Pt的氢用电催化剂。这样的结构将在配体去除过程中有效地稳定Pt簇，从而在酸性和碱性溶液中产生显着的产氢电催化性能。特别是，最佳的Pt5 / HMCS电催化剂在Pt负载相似的情况下，在商用Pt / C催化剂中表现出的Pt的质量活性是其Pt的12倍。