An electrodeposition approach to metal/metal oxide heterostructures for active hydrogen evolution catalysts in near-neutral electrolytes

Michael J. Kenney; Jianan Erick Huang; Yong Zhu; Yongtao Meng; Mingquan Xu; Guanzhou Zhu; Wei-Hsuan Hung; Yun Kuang; Mengchang Lin; Xiaoming Sun; Wu Zhou; Hongjie Dai

doi:10.1007/s12274-019-2379-7

Nano Research 2019, 12(6): 1431-1435 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2379-7

Research Article | Issue | Published: 29 May 2019

An electrodeposition approach to metal/metal oxide heterostructures for active hydrogen evolution catalysts in near-neutral electrolytes

Show Author's Information Hide Author's Information Michael J. Kenney^{¹^,^§}, Jianan Erick Huang^{¹^,^§}, Yong Zhu^{²^,^§}, Yongtao Meng^{¹^,³^,^§}, Mingquan Xu^², Guanzhou Zhu^¹, Wei-Hsuan Hung^{¹^,⁴}, Yun Kuang^{¹^,⁵}, Mengchang Lin^³, Xiaoming Sun^⁵, Wu Zhou^², Hongjie Dai^¹(

)

1 Department of Chemistry,Stanford University,Stanford, CA,94305,USA;

2 School of Physical Sciences and CAS Center for Excellence in Topological Quantum Computation,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing,100049,China;

3 College of Electrical Engineering and Automation,Shandong University of Science and Technology,Qingdao,266590,China;

4 Department of Materials Science and Engineering,Feng Chia University,Taichung,40724,Taiwan, China;

5 State Key laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering,Beijing University of Chemical Technology,Beijing,100029,China;

^§ Michael J. Kenney, Jianan Erick Huang, Yong Zhu, and Yongtao Meng contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:

catalysis, water splitting, hydrogen evolution, nanostructured materials, chemical mapping

Topics:

Catalysis Chromium compounds Cobalt alloys Electrocatalysts Electrodes Electrolytes Electron energy levels Electron scattering High resolution transmission electron microscopy Hydrogen production Nanostructured materials Nickel alloys Nickel oxide Potassium compounds Scanning electron microscopy Ternary alloys

Cite this article:

Kenney MJ, Huang JE, Zhu Y, et al. An electrodeposition approach to metal/metal oxide heterostructures for active hydrogen evolution catalysts in near-neutral electrolytes. Nano Research, 2019, 12(6): 1431-1435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2379-7

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Abstract Electronic supplementary material About this article

Abstract

Neutral water splitting is attractive for its use of non-corrosive and environmentally friendly electrolytes. However, catalyst development for hydrogen and oxygen evolution remains a challenge under neutral conditions. Here we report a simple electrodeposition and reductive annealing procedure to produce a highly active Ni-Co-Cr metal/metal oxide heterostructured catalyst directly on Ni foam. The resulting electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) requires only 198 mV of overpotential to reach 100 mA/cm² in 1 M potassium phosphate (pH = 7.4) and can operate for at least two days without significant performance decay. Scanning transmission electron microscopy coupled with electron energy loss spectroscopy (STEM-EELS) imaging reveals a Ni-Co alloy core decorated with blended oxides layers of NiO, CoO and Cr₂O₃. The metal/metal oxide interfaces are suggested to be responsible for the high HER activity.

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Publication history

Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 07 February 2019

Revised: 07 March 2019

Accepted: 12 March 2019

Published: 29 May 2019

Issue date: June 2019

Copyright

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by US Department of Energy DOE DE-SC0016165. Y. K. and X. M. S. acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Key Research and Development Project of China (No. 2016YFF0204402). Part of this work was performed at the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities (SNSF), supported by the National Science Foundation under award ECCS-1542152. The electron-microscopy work was performed in the CAS Key Laboratory of Vacuum Sciences with financial support from the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51622211).