Abstract
Direct electrochemical splitting of water is an attractive method to generate the renewable energy carrier hydrogen [1]. Low-cost catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is one key step in this process [2]. So far, there are no other pure metals except for noble elements really showing high activities for HER, and many efforts have been made to look for highly catalytic activated transition metal based alloys for HER [3,4]. In this work, HER was investigated on Ni-Co alloy electrode and Ni-Co-Sm2O3 composite electrode in 0.50 M Na2SO4 + 0.10 M H2SO4 solution. It was indicated that Sm2O3 particles promoted the formation of an amorphous structure of Ni-Co alloy coating, which was benefit for HER. The surface of Ni-Co-Sm2O3 composites was more coarse and grainy compared with that of Ni-Co alloy layer (Fig. 1). Steady-state polarization curves (Fig. 2) showed that the hydrogen evolution potential of Ni-Co-Sm2O3 composite electrode positively moved by about 240 mV at 8.0 mA cm-2 compared with that of Ni-Co alloy electrode, indicating that the embedded Sm2O3 particles enhanced the electrocatalytic activity of Ni-Co coating for HER. Furthermore, Ni-Co-Sm2O3 composite electrode has considerably lower charge transfer resistance and higher exchange current density.
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