Ni3Mo3N coupled with nitrogen-rich carbon microspheres as an efficient hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst and electrochemical sensor for H2O2 detection

Abstract

Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and electrochemical analysis are two important fields of electrochemical research at present. We found that both HER and some electrochemical analytical reactions relied on the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) in solution, so we intended to develop an electrode material that is sensitive to H+ and can be used for both HER and some electrochemical analyses. In this work, we synthesized Ni3Mo3N coupled with nitrogen-rich carbon microspheres (Ni3Mo3[email protected] MSs) as highly efficient electrode material for HER and detection of Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which plays an important role in physiological processes. Here the aniline was used as the nitrogen and carbon sources to synthesize Ni3Mo3[email protected] The Ni3Mo3[email protected] MSs showed high performance for HER in 1 M KOH solution with a small overpotential of 51 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and superior stability. For H2O2 detection, a detection limit of 1 μM (S/N = 3), sensitivity of 120.3 μA·mM−1 cm−2 and linear range of 5 μM–40 mM can be achieved, respectively. This work will open up a low-cost and easy avenue to synthesize transition metal nitrides coupled with N-doped carbon as bifunctional electrode material for HER and electrochemical detection.