Interface-induced electron transfer in sandwich-like hierarchical hollow CoP@NC hybrid for boosted hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline electrolyte

Abstract

It is necessary to develop an effective non-noble metal electrocatalyst to promote the slow kinetics of alkaline electrolytes. Here, a self-sacrificing template method is developed to construct sandwich-like layered hollow structures CoP@NC (H-CoP@NC) for promoting hydrogen evolution kinetics. The hierarchical hollow nanostructures give greater contact area between catalyst and electrolyte, shorten ion/electron transport distances, and expose more active sites. More importantly, the introduction of nitrogen-doped carbon (NC) can effectively prevent the aggregation of CoP and improve the electron transfer rate during phosphorylation. The overpotential of the catalyst H-CoP@NC is only 173 mV at a current density of 10 mA/cm2. The excellent catalytic activity can be attributed to the unique structure and the doping of heteroatom. This work provides a new method for designing hollow nanomaterials.