Weyl semimetals as catalysts

Understand

The search for highly efficient and low-cost catalysts is one of the main driving forces in catalytic chemistry.

• Current strategies for the catalyst design focus on increasing the number and activity of local catalytic sites, such as the edge-sites of molybdenum disulfides in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER).
• Here, we propose and demonstrate a different principle that goes beyond local site optimization by utilizing topological electronic states, a global property of the material, to spur catalytic activity.
• For HER, we have found excellent catalysts among the transition-metal monopnictides - NbP, TaP, NbAs, and TaAs - which were recently discovered to be topological Weyl semimetals.