Electroless Plating of Transition Metal Boride with High Boron Content as Superior HER Electrocatalyst

Abstract

Abstract Facile deposition of transition metal boride (TMB) with high‐boron content as highly efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalyst has been realized by a facile one‐step electroless‐plating (EP) method. Boron content of the TMB catalyst shows an appreciable impact on its intrinsic HER activity. NiB/NF electrode with thin amorphous nickel boride (NiB) deposition on nickel foam (NF) required overpotential of only 41.2 mV to deliver a current density of 10 mA cm −2 for HER in 1.0 M KOH alkaline electrolyte. Meanwhile, this kind of electrode also shows satisfied stability which can work at large current density of 1000 mA cm −2 for over 72 h without performance degradation. The advance on the TMB electrode may pave a way to the development of practical electrodes for water splitting.