Shuang Gao, Yipu Liu, Guodong Li
May 1, 2016
Citations
0
Influential Citations
45
Citations
Journal
Electrochimica Acta
Abstract
Abstract Elaborate design and synthesis of efficient and stable non-Pt electrocatalysts for some renewable energy-related conversion/storage processes is one of the major goals of sustainable chemistry. Herein, we report a facile, general, one-step synthetic method that leads to a family of non-noble metal hydrogen-evolving electrocatalysts that composed of metal phosphide nanoparticles embedded within nitrogen-doped carbon matrix. The synthesis of the materials is achieved via a facile one-step thermal treatment in inert atmosphere of homogeneously mixed urea, diammonium hydrogen phosphate and metal salts ( e.g. , ammonium molybdate for the synthesis of MoP). The use of inexpensive urea is crucial in the synthesis as it helps the deoxygenation-reduction of some metal salts and phosphor source ( i.e. , diammonium hydrogen phosphate) and undergoes in situ carbonization, leading to the formation of a composite material containing metal phosphide nanoparticles and nitrogen-doped carbon (NC) in one pot. Furthermore, we show that the resulting composite nanomaterials can serve as highly active, stable, noble metal-free electrocatalysts towards the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In particular, the MoP@NC material exhibits the best electrocatalytic activity in our study. This material affords a current density of 10 mA/cm 2 at a low overpotential of 135 mV, exhibits excellent catalytic stability as long as 20 h, and gives nearly 100% Faradaic yield towards HER.