Alloying Pt into Ni partially amorphous for promoted alkaline hydrogen production

Liming Zeng; Tianxiang Yuan; Zerui Liu; Yongyang Zhu; Daifeng Wu; Dongxing Wang; Qing Zhou; Renheng Tang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.12.066

Alloying Pt into Ni partially amorphous for promoted alkaline hydrogen production

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Mar 15:634:897-905. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.12.066. Epub 2022 Dec 19.

Authors

Liming Zeng¹, Tianxiang Yuan², Zerui Liu², Yongyang Zhu³, Daifeng Wu³, Dongxing Wang³, Qing Zhou³, Renheng Tang³

Affiliations

¹ State key Laboratory of Separation and Comprehensive Utilization of Rare Metals, Institute of Resources Utilization and Rare Earth Development, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China; College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Hubei Key Lab of Electrochemical Power Sources, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China. Electronic address: lmz2012chem@whu.edu.cn.
² State key Laboratory of Separation and Comprehensive Utilization of Rare Metals, Institute of Resources Utilization and Rare Earth Development, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Storage Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China.
³ State key Laboratory of Separation and Comprehensive Utilization of Rare Metals, Institute of Resources Utilization and Rare Earth Development, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China.

PMID: 36566635
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.12.066

Abstract

Aiming at the sluggish water dissociation step in alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the platinum-nickel alloy material (PtNi₁₀/C) featuring unique crystalline/amorphous structure supported on carbon black is deliberately designed and fabricated via a reversely rapid co-precipitation and mild thermal reduction strategy. Electrochemical results show that only 66 mV of overpotential is needed for PtNi₁₀/C to drive a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 at a lower platinum loading (8.3 μg_Pt cm-2 geo), which is much lower than that of other catalysts with a single metal source(S-Ni/C and S-Pt/C) and even the commercial Pt/C catalyst (20 wt%). The target catalyst also exhibits smaller tafel slope value (16.73 mV dec^-1) and electrochemical impedance value, enabling a fast kinetics rate for water dissociation. Partial crystallization facilitates moderate adsorption of intermediates, while the high-valence Ni(II) and Pt(II) species serve as pivotal driving force for the kinetic dissociation of water. The unique microstructure of PtNi₁₀/C shows a remarkable advantage toward HER in alkaline but acidic medium. In addition, other transition metal-based catalysts following the similar protocol are also fabricated and present varying degrees of HER performance. Hence, the facile and rapid co-precipitation/thermal reduction strategy proposed in this study provides some guidelines for designing high-efficiency alkaline HER catalysts.

Keywords: Alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction; Partially amorphous; Pt-Ni alloy.