Self-Supported Metallic Glass as a Highly Durable HER Electrode under Fluctuating Renewable Power

The large-scale integration of wind or photovoltaic power into the power grid has led to significant wastage of wind and photovoltaic resources. Directly producing hydrogen using renewable energy sources is one of the effective ways to absorb abandoned light and wind. Here, we report a novel self-supporting metallic glass (MG) electrode. This self-supporting electrode exhibits excellent hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance with a very small overpotential of 30.16 mV at 10 mA cm–2 in acidic media after controllable electrochemical treatment (CET). The CET metallic glass also demonstrates robust HER catalytic performance and stability under fluctuating power condition. At a consistent overpotential, the current density increased from 1000 to 1366 mA cm–2 within 200 h and then remained stable for over 200 h even at high current densities. The remarkable catalytic performance, excellent durability, and self-supporting nature of the metallic glass electrode make it highly promising for green hydrogen production. Directly producing hydrogen using this material will effectively utilize wasted wind and photovoltaic resources, contributing to achieving global carbon neutrality.