Triggering Pt Active Sites in Basal Plane of Van der Waals PtTe Materials by Amorphization Engineering for Hydrogen Evolution.

Exposing active sites and optimizing their binding strength to reaction intermediates are two essential strategies to significantly improve the catalytic performance of 2D materials. However, pursuing an efficient way to achieve these goals simultaneously remains a considerable challenge. Here, using 2D PtTe van der Waals material with a well-defined crystal structure and atomically thin thickness as a model catalyst, it is observed that a moderate calcination strategy can promote the structural transformation of 2D crystal PtTe nanosheets (c-PtTe NSs) into oxygen-doped 2D amorphous PtTe NSs (a-PtTe NSs).