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Research Article

Enhancement of the hydrogen evolution performance by finely tuning the morphology of Co-based catalyst without changing chemical composition

Wenling Gu1,2, Liuyong Hu1,2, Changshuai Shang1,2, Jing Li1( ), Erkang Wang1( )
State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry,Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences,Changchun,130022,China;
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing,100049,China;
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Abstract

Transition-metal phosphides, as the promising alternatives to noble metal catalysts, have been widely used as efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In this work, three kinds of cobalt-8-hydroxyquinoline (Coqx) with different size and nanostructures are synthesized by varying the hydrothermal conditions, which was named as Coqx-L, Coqx-M and Coqx-S according to the decreased size. Accordingly, the CoxP/NC with three different size nanostructures (CoxP/NC-L, CoxP/NC-M and CoxP/NC-S) are obtained by the sequential carbonization and phosphidation of Coqx. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results imply the identical chemical composition in these catalysts with different morphologies. Thus, systematic study is carried out to reveal the relationship between catalytic performance and morphologies of materials with the same chemical composition. The experimental result indicates that the morphology of CoxP/NC plays a crucial role on the surface area and electron transfer. Finally, the catalyst of CoxP/NC-S with the smallest size nanostructrue exhibits the best HER performance with a low overpotential at current density of 10 mA/cm2 (η = 56.9 and 115.6 mV) and a small Tafel slope (52.3 and 69.3 mV/dec) in both 0.1 M HClO4 and 1.0 M KOH as well as long-term stability.

Keywords

electrocatalysthydrogen evolution reactiontransition-metal phosphides

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Nano Research
Volume 12 Issue 1,
January 2019
Pages 191-196
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-018-2201-y
Cite this article:
Gu W, Hu L, Shang C, et al. Enhancement of the hydrogen evolution performance by finely tuning the morphology of Co-based catalyst without changing chemical composition. Nano Research, 2019, 12(1): 191-196. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2201-y
Topics:
Chlorine compoundsCobalt depositsElectrocatalystsHydrogenNanostructuresPhosphorus compoundsPotassium hydroxidePrecious metalsX-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

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Received: 19 May 2018
Revised: 30 June 2018
Accepted: 19 July 2018
Published: 18 September 2018
© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018
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