Self-supported amorphous TaNx(Oy)/nickel foam thin film as an advanced electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

Ganesh Babu Thiyagarajan; Raghunath Sharma Mukkavilli; David Graf; Thomas Fischer; Michael Wilhelm; Silke Christiansen; Sanjay Mathur; Ravi Kumar

doi:10.1039/d2cc00151a

Self-supported amorphous TaN_x(O_y)/nickel foam thin film as an advanced electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

Chem Commun (Camb). 2022 Mar 8;58(20):3310-3313. doi: 10.1039/d2cc00151a.

Authors

Ganesh Babu Thiyagarajan^{1

2}, Raghunath Sharma Mukkavilli¹, David Graf³, Thomas Fischer³, Michael Wilhelm³, Silke Christiansen^{4

5}, Sanjay Mathur^{1

3}, Ravi Kumar^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory for High Performance Ceramics, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT Madras), Chennai 600036, India. nvrk@iitm.ac.in.
² Ceramic Technologies Group-Center of Excellence in Materials and Manufacturing for Futuristic Mobility, Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT Madras), Chennai 600036, India.
³ Department of Chemistry, Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Cologne, Greinstraße 6, 50939 Cologne, Germany. mathurs@uni-koeln.de.
⁴ Department Correlative Microscopy and Materials Data, Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems (IKTS), Forchheim, Germany.
⁵ Physics Department, Freie Universität Berlin (FU), Berlin, Germany.

PMID: 35179160
DOI: 10.1039/d2cc00151a

Abstract

Chemical vapor deposited (CVD) amorphous tantalum-oxy nitride film on porous three-dimensional (3D) nickel foam (TaN_x(O_y)/NF) utilizing tantalum precursor, tris(diethylamino)(ethylimino)tantalum(V), ([Ta(NEt)(NEt₂)₃]) with preformed Ta-N bonds is reported as a potential self-supported electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The morphological analyses revealed the formation of thin film of core-shell structured TaN_x(O_y) coating (ca. 236 nm) on NF. In 0.5 M H₂SO₄, TaN_x(O_y)/NF exhibited enhanced HER activity with a low onset potential as compared to the bare NF (-50 mV vs. -166 mV). The TaN_x(O_y)/NF samples also displayed higher current density (-11.08 mA cm^-2vs. -3.36 mA cm^-2 at 400 mV), lower Tafel slope (151 mV dec^-1vs. 179 mV dec^-1) and lower charge transfer resistance exemplifying the advantage of TaN_x(O_y) coating towards enhanced HER performance. The enhanced HER catalytic activity is attributed to the synergistic effect between the amorphous TaN_x(O_y) film and the nickel foam.