Abstract:In order to solve the problems of high production cost and short catalytic cycling life of commercial Pt/C electrodes in the field of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), phosphotungstic acid was used to provide tungsten source, while the single-layer graphene oxide (GO) was used as a carrier and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with favorable electron transport orbits was adulterated. WO3 crystals was prepared by one-step hydrothermal method and calcination in air. After that, WO3-rGO-CNTs nanoheterostructure was successfully synthesized. The chemical structure and physical morphology of WO3-rGO-CNTs were characterized by FT-IR, XRD, XPS, TG, SEM, EDAX, TEM and BET. The results show that WO3 crystals is uniformly grown on the surface of the single layer of GO with CNTs, the WO3-rGO-CNTs exhibits excellent HER electrocatalytic activities in an acidic electrolyte. Linear Sweep Voltammetry (LSV) and Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) measurements were performed for HER testing with WO3-rGO-CNTs nanoheterostructure. When the current density is 10 mA/cm2, the overpotential is 218 mV and the Tafel slope is 130.5 mV /dec. When the overpotential is -0.5 V vs. RHE, the impedance value is 8.2 Ω. At the same time, WO3-rGO-CNTs nanoheterostructure can maintain long-term stability and durability for up to 50 h under the overpotential of 218 mV (current density is 10 mA/cm2), while its double-layer capacitance value is 1.2 mF/cm2. All of the electrochemical data show that WO3 crystals and GO with CNTs have synergistic effect due to the existence of heterogeneous structure: GO provides a wide range of metal reaction active sites for WO3 crystals, while CNTs provides active orbitals that are conducive to electron transport.