Excellent electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance of hexagonal NiCoP porous nanosheets in alkaline solution

Research on the stable and high-efficiency transition metal-based electrocatalyst to achieve hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) becomes one of the core solutions for water decomposition. Non-precious metals phosphide has the potential to become a non-noble metal electrocatalyst due to its good electronic structure effect, extremely low price, and expected durability in a larger pH range. In this paper, hexagonal NiCoP porous nanosheets were synthesized using a facile hydrothermal and post-phosphating method. We anticipate that bimetal doping can further enhance electrocatalyst activity as well as improve the capability of absorbing hydrogen from the materials by modifying the electronic structure. The obtained NiCoP electrocatalyst behaves outstanding catalytic performances for HER in alkaline media with 83 mV initial overpotential at 10 mA cm−2, as well as the low Tafel slopes of 41 mV dec−1. In addition, the current density showed almost no attenuation in the 10 h chronoamperometry experiment. The outstanding catalytic function can be attributed to the nanosheets with many orifices, which can expand the effective reaction specific surface area, promote mass transport and boost the water decomposition efficiency. And the collaboration of Ni and Co in NiCoP nanosheets can also improve the electrochemical function. Moreover, the current work offers a feasible approach for synthesizing a cheap and efficient NiCoP electrocatalyst for HER, which is especially appealing to practical application.