Stainless Steel-Supported Amorphous Nickel Phosphide/Nickel as an Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

• Published in: Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2022-09, Vol.12 (19), p.3328
• Main Authors: Liu, Gaoyang, Hou, Faguo, Wang, Xindong, Fang, Baizeng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: amorphous nickel phosphide; Boundaries; Carbon; Catalysts; chemical plating; Corrosion resistance; Crystal defects; electrocatalysis; Electrocatalysts; Electrochemistry; Electrodes; Electrolysis; Electron transport; Fuel cells; Grain size; Hydrogen; Hydrogen as fuel; hydrogen evolution reaction; Hydrogen evolution reactions; Interlayers; Methods; Microscopy; Nickel; Nickel compounds; pH effects; Phosphides; Plating; Pore size; Pore size distribution; Precious metals; Production processes; Spectrum analysis; Stainless steel; Stainless steels; Steel, Stainless; Surface defects; water electrolysis
• ISSN: 2079-4991; 2079-4991
• DOI: 10.3390/nano12193328

Recently, nickel phosphides (Ni-P) in an amorphous state have emerged as potential catalysts with high intrinsic activity and excellent electrochemical stability for hydrogen evolution reactions (HER). However, it still lacks a good strategy to prepare amorphous Ni-P with rich surface defects or structural boundaries, and it is also hard to construct a porous Ni-P layer with favorable electron transport and gas–liquid transport. Herein, an integrated porous electrode consisting of amorphous Ni-P and a Ni interlayer was successfully constructed on a 316L stainless steel felt (denoted as Ni-P/Ni-316L). The results demonstrated that the pH of the plating solution significantly affected the grain size, pore size and distribution, and roughness of the cell-like particle surface of the amorphous Ni-P layer. The Ni-P/Ni-316L prepared at pH = 3 presented the richest surface defects or structural boundaries as well as porous structure. As expected, the as-developed Ni-P/Ni-316L demonstrated the best kinetics, with η10 of 73 mV and a Tafel slope of ca. 52 mV dec-1 for the HER among all the electrocatalysts prepared at various pH values. Furthermore, the Ni-P/Ni-316L exhibited comparable electrocatalytic HER performance and better durability than the commercial Pt (20 wt%)/C in a real water electrolysis cell, indicating that the non-precious metal-based Ni-P/Ni-316L is promising for large-scale processing and practical use.