To reduce operational costs for the water electrolysis, big efforts on lowering the platinum content of the cathode catalyst are being made. Carbide materials are amongst the most promising candidates as both support materials and active electrocatalysts by themselves. By systematically studying the parameters influencing their catalytic performance and especially their limitations, the present work evaluates the applicability of the carbides SiC, WC, Mo2C, TaC and NbC for the hydrogen evolution reaction and for heterogeneous catalysis in general. Approaches for the preparation of high surface area carbide powders as well as for thin carbide layers are presented.
