Vanadium-induced synthesis of amorphous V–Co–P nanoparticles for an enhanced hydrogen evolution reaction
*a
Bolong
Jiang,
aef
Abstract
The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) plays a vital role for the production of pure hydrogen with zero carbon release. Developing high efficiency non-noble metal electrocatalysts could reduce its cost. Here, vanadium doped cobalt phosphide grown on carbon cloth (CC) was synthesized by the low temperature electrodeposition–phosphorization method. The influence of V dopants on the structural, morphological, and electrocatalytic performance of Vx–Co1−x–P composites was also investigated in-depth. Impressively, the optimized amorphous V0.1–Co0.9–P nano-electrocatalyst exhibits outstanding catalytic activity with a low overpotential of 50 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and a small Tafel value of 48.5 mV dec−1 in alkaline media. The results showed that V dopants in the composite change its crystal structure from the crystalline phase to the amorphous phase, resulting in the introduction of V–O sites, which regulate the electron density of the active sites and the exposure of surface active sites and thus promote the electrocatalytic HER process. This work provides a novel idea for the fabrication of high-efficiency metal phosphide based electrocatalysts.
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