Disordered and ultrafine PtNiMo alloy for superior electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution in alkaline

Abstract

Developing efficient and stable Pt-based alloy catalysts toward hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is great of importance for the industrial and sustainable applications of hydrogen production. Herein, we fabricate the defective and ultrafine PtNiMo catalyst with modified electronic structure and alloy structure through the introduction of saturated potassium chloride solution. In alkaline conditions, the PtNiMo alloy catalyst exhibits the ultralow overpotentials of 39 and 319 mV at the current density of 10 and 300 mA cm−2, respectively, accompanied with small Tafel slope of 31 mV dec−1 and high mass activities of 6.1 A gPt−1 at the overpotential of 75 mV. Moreover, the PtNiMo alloy catalyst shows superior electrocatalytic durability, together with negligible decay over 5000 cyclic voltammetry cycles for HER operations. The work offers an efficient route to achieve highly efficient electrocatalysts with defective structure for energy storage and conversion devices.