Abstract
Development of non-noble effective electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media is immensely desirable for effective water splitting but still challenging. In this work, we synthesized 3d metal hydroxides modified tungsten carbide (WC) nanorods as an efficient and cost-effective HER catalyst. Among various metal hydroxides (Ni, Co, Fe, Mn – (OH)x) tested, Ni(OH)2-WC/NF shows the most outstanding catalytic activity, requiring overpotential of 74 mV to deliver a current density of 10 mA/cm2 with Tafel slope of 67 mV/dec. Also, the catalyst shows a highly stable performance over 12 h in 1.0 M KOH. This prominent enhancement of alkaline HER activity results from the role of the metal hydroxides in promoting water separation to hydrogen intermediates (Hads), which then adsorb on the near WC surface active sites to produce hydrogen. This interface engineering offers not only a promising alkaline HER catalyst [Ni(OH)2-WC/NF] but also up-to-date strategies to enhance HER catalytic activity with hybridized 3d metal hydroxides in alkaline media.
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