Amorphous Co-Mo-P film on nickel foam: a superior bifunctional electrocatalyst for alkaline seawater splitting

Xuefeng Zhang; Qin Yang; Longcheng Zhang; Jun Li; Shengjun Sun; Yingchun Yang; Yuntong Sun; Xuping Sun

doi:10.1088/1361-6528/ad12e6

Amorphous Co-Mo-P film on nickel foam: a superior bifunctional electrocatalyst for alkaline seawater splitting

Nanotechnology. 2023 Dec 21;35(10). doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/ad12e6.

Authors

Xuefeng Zhang¹, Qin Yang¹, Longcheng Zhang², Jun Li², Shengjun Sun³, Yingchun Yang¹, Yuntong Sun³, Xuping Sun^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ College of Resources and Environment, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu 610225, People's Republic of China.
² Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Science, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, People's Republic of China.
³ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250014, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 38055973
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/ad12e6

Abstract

Seawater splitting is a compelling avenue to produce abundant hydrogen, which requires high-performance and cost-effective catalysts. Constructing bimetallic transition metal phosphides is a feasible strategy to meet the challenge. Here, an amorphous Co-Mo-P film supported on nickel foam (Co-Mo-P/NF) electrode is developed with bifunctional properties for both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline seawater. Corresponding results indicate that the introduction of Mo can improve the active sites and regulate the intrinsic activity. Such a Co-Mo-P/NF behaves with prominent electrocatalytic activity towards both HER and OER, demanding low overpotentials of 193 and 352 mV at 100 mA cm^‒2in alkaline seawater, respectively. Furthermore, the assembled electrolyzer demands a pronounced overall seawater splitting activity with a low cell voltage of 1.76 V to deliver 100 mA cm^-2presenting excellent durability without obvious attenuation after 24 h continuous stability test. This work expands the horizon to develop transition metal-phosphorus electrocatalysts with robust and efficient activity for overall seawater splitting.

Keywords: alkaline seawater splitting; amorphous Co–Mo–P film; bifunctional electrocatalyst; nickel foam.