Preparation of Ni–CeO2 composite coatings with high catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

Ni–CeO2 composite coatings for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) were electrodeposited under supergravity field from nickel sulfamate bath containing suspended nano-sized CeO2 particles. The prepared Ni–CeO2 composite coatings exhibit finer grain size and higher CeO2 content than that prepared under normal gravity condition. In addition, Tafel curves were determined to study the catalytic activity of composite coatings electrodeposited under different supergravity fields in 1M NaOH solution. The results indicated that Ni–CeO2 composite coating prepared under rotational speed 2350rpm presents the highest electrocatalytic activity for HER, and its exchange current density reaches 338.4μAcm−2, which is obviously better than the value ever reported in literature.