Electroless plating of Co[sbnd]P[sbnd]O electrocatalyst on carbon cloth for alkaline water electrolysis

Abstract

We report the simple method of fabrication, self-supported nanostructure of CoPO nanoparticles (NPs) on carbon cloth scaffold by electroless plating. CoPO demonstrates exceptional bi-functional catalytic performance in water electrolysis, efficiently producing hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) gases simultaneously due to optimized adsorption energy for intermediates and the excellent conductivity of Cobalt-metallic nanoparticles. CoPO achieves a geometric current of 10 mA/cm2 with 190 mV and 280 mV overpotential for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), respectively, while its continuous catalytic nanoparticle coating on the carbon cloth scaffold ensures superior charge transport with minimal resistance. It is highly encouraging to observe that the HER and OER performance of CoPO electrodes far surpasses that of carbon cloth, approaching the benchmark set by noble electrocatalysts Pt/C and RuO2. The alkaline electrolyser based on the two-electrode cell using CoPO electrodes demonstrates bi-functional water splitting at 1.64 V and 1.98 V at 10 and 100 mA/cm2. Furthermore, the alkaline electrolyser exhibits stable electrocatalytic activity for about more than 16 h at the current density of 50 mA/cm2.