Premium
Cu 2 S‐Cu 3 P Nanowire Arrays Self‐Supported on Copper Foam as Boosting Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Evolution
Author(s) -
Xu Fei,
Lu Jiajia,
Luo Lin,
Yu Chen,
Tang Zheng,
Abbo Hanna S.,
Titinchi Salam J. J.,
Zhu Jinliang,
Kang Shen Pei,
Yin Shibin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
energy technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.91
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 2194-4296
pISSN - 2194-4288
DOI - 10.1002/ente.201800993
Subject(s) - tafel equation , overpotential , nanowire , materials science , chemical engineering , copper , electrochemistry , scanning electron microscope , transmission electron microscopy , electrocatalyst , electrolyte , water splitting , hydrogen , nanotechnology , catalysis , electrode , chemistry , composite material , metallurgy , biochemistry , organic chemistry , photocatalysis , engineering
With the rapid electrochemical development of hydrogen evolution, the search for low‐cost and high activity electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution has received extensive attention. The fabrication of self‐supported Cu 2 S‐Cu 3 P nanowire (Cu 2 S‐Cu 3 P NW) arrays on a commercial copper foam by a liquid–solid reaction and subsequent phosphatation at low temperature is reported. The corresponding scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results indicate that the Cu 2 S‐Cu 3 P NW arrays have a dense nanowire (NW) structure with sulfur and phosphorous uniformly distributed on the surface of the nanowires. Interestingly, the Cu 2 S‐Cu 3 P NW arrays act as a hydrogen‐evolving cathode that when operated in 1.0 m KOH electrolyte only require a low overpotential of 158 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm −2 and show a small Tafel slope of 45 mV dec −1 . The activity decrease is negligible after holding at −500 mA cm –2 for 75 h, which thus demonstrates excellent stability. This could be due to the structure of nanowire arrays and synergistic effects between S and P, which could increase the specific surface area, reduce the charge transfer resistance, facilitate mass diffusion and electron transfers, and increase the active sites. This work therefore provides a simple method to prepare low‐cost and self‐supported electrocatalysts with high catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution.