The rapid production of multiple transition metal carbides via microwave combustion under ambient conditions

Abstract

Transition metal carbides (TMCs) have attracted great interest owing to their potential applications for energy storage and electrocatalysis. But the synthesis of high-quality TMCs usually needs high energy consumption, long reaction times, or dangerous chemical reagents, limiting their practical application. Here, a microwave combustion method is developed to rapidly (∼2 min) produce transition metal carbides under ambient conditions. The as-synthesized TMCs (W₂C, VC, Fe₃C, NbC, TaC, and Mo₂C) and rGO composites exhibit outstanding catalytic performance for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) over a broad range of pH values. This work highlights a novel strategy for the design and synthesis of transition metal carbides.