Highly Efficient Hydrogen Evolution in Alkaline Medium by Ternary Cobalt Molybdenum Nitride on Self-standing Porous Copper Foam

Abstract

Hydrogen is an ideal energy carrier, owning to high energy density and zero pollution emission. Hydrogen generation in an alkaline environment is desirable but challenging. A few electrocatalysts have been reported for alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), but are generally suffered from large over potentials and short durability. Herein, we constructed a self-standing ternary cobalt molybdenum nitride catalyst on copper foam using a simple hydrothermal method and treated under a H2 atmosphere subsequently. Remarkably, the CoN/Mo2N/Cu catalyst exhibits ultralow overpotentials of only 18 mV and 68 mV at current densities of 10 mA cm−2 and 100 mA cm−2 for HER in 1.0 M KOH, respectively. In addition, the ternary catalyst achieves superior durability for more than 100 h at the current density of 20 mA cm−2 without evident deterioration, indicating that the catalyst has an encouraging industrial perspective.