Self-supporting Co0.85Se nanosheets anchored on Co plate as highly efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction in both acidic and alkaline media

Abstract

Electrocatalytic water splitting via hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) represents one of promising strategies to gain hydrogen energy. In current work, self-supporting Co0.85Se nanosheets network anchored on Co plate (Co0.85Se NSs@Co) is fabricated by employing easily tailorable Co metal plate as the source conductive substrate. The scalable dealloying and hydrothermal selenization strategy was employed to build one layer of three dimensional interlinking Co0.85Se nanosheets network on the surface of Co plate. Benefiting from bulky integrated architecture and rich active sites, the as-made Co0.85Se NSs@Co exhibits superior electrocatalytic activity and long-term catalytic durability toward HER. It only requires lower overpotentials of 121 and 162 mV to drive the current density of 10 mA·cm−2 for hydrogen evolution in 0.5 M H2SO4 and 1 M KOH solution. Especially, no evident activity decay occurs upon 1,500 cycles or continuous test for 20 h at 10 mA·cm−2 in both acidic and alkaline electrolytes. With the merits of exceptional performances, scalable production, and low cost, the self-supporting Co0.85Se NSs@Co holds prospective application potential as stable and binder-free electrocatalysts for hydrogen generation in a wide range of electrolyte.