Electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution using amorphous tungsten phosphide nanoparticles

Joshua M McEnaney; J Chance Crompton; Juan F Callejas; Eric J Popczun; Carlos G Read; Nathan S Lewis; Raymond E Schaak

doi:10.1039/c4cc04709e

Electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution using amorphous tungsten phosphide nanoparticles

Chem Commun (Camb). 2014 Sep 28;50(75):11026-8. doi: 10.1039/c4cc04709e. Epub 2014 Aug 6.

Authors

Joshua M McEnaney¹, J Chance Crompton, Juan F Callejas, Eric J Popczun, Carlos G Read, Nathan S Lewis, Raymond E Schaak

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry and Materials Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. schaak@chem.psu.edu.

PMID: 25099117
DOI: 10.1039/c4cc04709e

Abstract

Amorphous tungsten phosphide (WP), which has been synthesized as colloidal nanoparticles with an average diameter of 3 nm, has been identified as a new electrocatalyst for the hydrogen-evolution reaction (HER) in acidic aqueous solutions. WP/Ti electrodes produced current densities of -10 mA cm(-2) and -20 mA cm(-2) at overpotentials of only -120 mV and -140 mV, respectively, in 0.50 M H2SO4(aq).