Trace Amount of NiP₂ Cooperative CoMoP Nanosheets Inducing Efficient Hydrogen Evolution

Abstract

As a very attractive clean energy, hydrogen has a high energy density and great potential to achieve zero pollution emission. Therefore, the preparation of hydrogen evolution electrocatalysts with excellent performance is an urgent task to ameliorate the global energy shortage and environmental pollution. Here, a trace amount of NiP₂ coupled with CoMoP nanosheets (NCMP) was synthesized by the one-step hydrothermal method and low-temperature phosphidation. Studies have found that although the dosage of NiP₂ is very low, its appearance has been efficient to improve the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance of CoMoP, which may be induced by the synergistic effect of the two different components NiP₂ and CoMoP. To find the superior catalyst, the effect of Ni content on the catalyst performance is also studied, and it is found that when the dosage of Ni is 0.02 mM, NCMP-2 (2 means 0.02 mM) displays the most outstanding overpotential (10 mA cm^-2) of 46 mV.