Flexible vanadium-doped Ni2P nanosheet arrays grown on carbon cloth for an efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

Nanoscale. 2019 Mar 7;11(10):4198-4203. doi: 10.1039/c8nr10167a.

Abstract

Tuning the electronic structure, morphology, and structure of electrocatalysts is of great significance to achieve a highly active and stable hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, combining hydrothermal and low temperature phosphidation methods, V-doped Ni2P nanosheet arrays grown on carbon cloth (V-Ni2P NSAs/CC) were successfully prepared for the HER. It is found that the prepared V-Ni2P NSAs/CC exhibits preeminent performance for the HER. Specifically, it only requires an overpotential of 85 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm-2 in 1.0 M KOH solution. Moreover, the V-Ni2P NSAs/CC shows superior electrochemical stability, maintaining its HER performance up to 3000 cyclic voltammetry cycles. This work affords a guiding strategy for the synthesis of a high-performance and stable electrocatalyst for the HER.