Nickel phosphide nanoparticles decorated nitrogen and phosphorus co-doped porous carbon as efficient hybrid catalyst for hydrogen evolution

By Lin, Yan; Zhang, Jun; Pan, Yuan; Liu, Yunqi
Published in Applied Surface Science NULL 2017

Abstract

Abstract The design of efficient and robust Ni2P-based hybrid catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is still in challenge. In this work, a hybrid catalyst composed of monodispersed Ni2P nanoparticles (NPs) and N, P co-doped porous carbon (NPPC) was synthesized through a facile thermal decomposition and used as an efficient electrocatalyst for the {HER} in 0.5 M {H2SO4} solution. Series technologies including X-ray diffraction, Raman, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and {N2} sorption are used to characterize the as-synthesized catalysts. The electrochemisty experiments suggested that the as-synthesized Ni2P/NPPC displayed efficient electrocatalytic performance with a low onset overpotential (51 mV), small Tafel slope (74 mV dec?1), high exchange current density (0.12 mA cm?2), large electrochemical double-layer capacitance (21.97 mF cm?2) and high conductivity for the HER. The needed overpotentials are 159 and 184 mV to reach to the current density of 10 and 20 mA cm?2, respectively. Simultaneously, Ni2P/NPPC also displayed good stability in acid solution. The more defects and active sites on the porous carbon which are offered by the co-doped N and P atoms as well as the synergistic effect between {NPPC} and Ni2P {NPs} are contributed to the excellent catalytic performance for HER. The current study suggests that introducing the N, P heteroatoms co-doped carbon materials to the Ni2P-based catalysts could enhance {HER} electrocatalytic performance efficiently.

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