Preparation of Ni–P–La alloy as a novel electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

Ternary Ni–P–La alloy was synthesized by the co-electrodeposition method on the copper substrate. The energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used for characterization of the synthesized alloy. The electrochemical performance of the novel alloy was investigated based on electrochemical data obtained from steady-state polarization, Tafel curves, linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in alkaline solution and at ambient temperature. The results showed that the microstructural properties play a vital purpose in determining the electrocatalytic activity of the novel alloys. Also, the HER on investigated alloys was performed via the Volmer-Heyrovsky mechanism and Volmer step as RDS in this work. Ni–P–La catalyst was specified by ƞ250 = −139.0 mV, b = −93.0 mV dec−1, and jo = −181.0 μA cm−2. The results revealed that the Ni–P–La catalysts have a high potential for HER electrocatalysts in 1M NaOH solution.