Carbon-incorporated bimetallic phosphide nanospheres derived from MOFs as superior electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution

Xiaoxuan Shao; Shusheng Xu; Peijie Wang; Yi Wen; Xuecheng Sun; Min Hong; Kaiwei Wu; Xue-Rong Shi

doi:10.1039/d2dt02204d

Carbon-incorporated bimetallic phosphide nanospheres derived from MOFs as superior electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution

Dalton Trans. 2022 Oct 4;51(38):14517-14525. doi: 10.1039/d2dt02204d.

Authors

Xiaoxuan Shao¹, Shusheng Xu¹, Peijie Wang¹, Yi Wen¹, Xuecheng Sun², Min Hong³, Kaiwei Wu¹, Xue-Rong Shi¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Engineering, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China. xushusheng@sues.edu.cn.
² Microelectronic Research & Development Center, School of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, P. R. China. sunxc@shu.edu.cn.
³ Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.

PMID: 36070498
DOI: 10.1039/d2dt02204d

Abstract

Preparing low-cost and highly efficient electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction using a simple strategy still faces challenges. In this work, we proposed a facile phosphating process to successfully transform CoFe-BTC (BTC = 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylate) precursors into carbon-incorporated bimetallic phosphide (CoFe-P/C) nanospheres. Due to the synergistic effect between bimetals and uniformly covered carbon shells outside, the as-synthesized porous bimetallic phosphide nanospheres exhibit superior HER activity, enhanced kinetics, and excellent cycle durability in both acidic and alkaline solutions. The optimized material could afford a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 with overpotentials of 138 and 193 mV for the HER in acidic and alkaline solutions, respectively. Meanwhile, it delivered small Tafel slopes of 84 and 78 mV dec^-1 for the HER in 0.5 M H₂SO₄ and 1.0 M KOH, respectively. Moreover, an assembled alkaline electrolyzer enabled a low voltage of 1.62 V to drive a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 for overall water splitting. DFT calculations indicate that the CoP-Fe₂P composite is supposed to exhibit better HER performance than each component, revealing the vital role of the interfacial site in catalyzing the HER.