In situ formation of N-doped carbon-coated porous MoP nanowires: a highly efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction in a wide pH range

By Chaoran Pi, Chao Huang, Yixuan Yang, Hao Song, Xuming Zhang, Yang Zheng, B. Gao, Jijiang Fu, Paul K. Chu, K. Huo. 2020

136 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Molybdenum phosphide (MoP) is a promising non-noble-metal electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), but coordination of high HER activity and fast HER kinetics is a challenge. Herein, we proposed a highly efficient HER electrocatalyst composed of N-doped carbon-coated porous MoP nanowires (MoP@NC) by phosphorization of organic-inorganic Mo3O10(C6H8N)2·2H2O NWs. The MoP@NC with mesopores MoP framework and micropores N-doped carbon-coating facilitates the electrolyte/bubbles diffusion and ion/electron transport, owns abundant active sites and smaller adsorption free energy of H (ΔGH*) at the interface boosting the HER performance. Small overpotentials (η10) of 96, 191 and 149 mV with Tafel slopes of 49.2, 95.0 and 61.7 mV dec−1 in acidic, neutural and alkaline solutions were achieved as well as excellent stability, which is better than that of bare MoP NWs and other MoP-based electocatalysts. The results reveal a simple and effective approach to produce inexpensive electrocatalysts with excellent HER properties in a wide pH range.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Electrochemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6f84d261479b51faa735c063f13236bd5a5caa7d