Engineering In-Plane Nickel Phosphide Heterointerfaces with Interfacial sp HP Hybridization for Highly Efficient and Durable Hydrogen Evolution at 2 A cm-2.

Abstract

The catalytic hydrogen-evolving activities of transition-metal phosphides are greatly related to the phosphorus content, but the physical origin of performance enhancement remains ambiguous, and tuning the catalytic activity of nickel phosphides (NiP2 /Ni5 P4 ) remains challenging due to unfavorable H* adsorption. Here, a strategy is introduced to integrate P-rich NiP2 and P-poor Ni5 P4 into in-plane heterostructures by anion substitution, in which P atoms at the in-plane interfaces perform as active sites to adsorb H* and thus facilitate the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) process via modulating the electronic structure between NiP2 and Ni5 P4 . Consequently, the NiP2 /Ni5 P4 hybrid exhibits an outstanding hydrogen-evolving activity, requiring only 30 and 76mV to afford 10 and 100mA cm-2 in acid, respectively. It surpasses most of the earth-abundant electrocatalysts thus far, and is comparable to Pt catalysts (30/72mV at 10/100mA cm-2 ). Particularly, it can run smoothly at large current density and only requires 247mV to reach 2000mA cm-2 . Detailed theoretical calculations reveal that its exceptional activity stems from the moderate overlap of density states between P 2p and H 1s orbitals, thus optimizing the H*-adsorption strength. This work highlights a new avenue toward the fabrication of robust non-noble electrocatalysts by constructing in-plane heterojunctions.