Construction of Ni–Mo–P heterostructures with efficient hydrogen evolution performance under acidic condition

Hydrogen energy is regarded as one of the most important clean energy in the twenty-first century, and improving the catalytic efficiency of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is the basis for realizing the large-scale hydrogen production. Transition metal phosphides (TMPs) were proved to be efficient electrocatalysts for HER. In this work, we first synthesized the nickel-molybdenum bimetallic precursors, followed by high-temperature calcination in air. Finally, NiMoP/MoP nanorods (Ni–Mo–P NRs) was obtained by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of phosphating. The target catalyst of Ni–Mo–P NRs was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). For Ni–Mo–P NRs, the electrochemical test in 0.5 M H2SO4 solution for HER showed that the optimal feeding ratio was Ni:Mo = 1:1. And the Ni1–Mo1–P NRs presented an onset potential of 63.2 mV, and an overpotential of 117.9 mV was required to drive the current density of 10 mA cm−2. Meanwhile, The Tafel slope, exchange current density (j0), electrochemical double-layer capacitance (Cdl) were 58.6 mV dec−1, 0.10 mA cm−2, 12.6 mF cm−2, respectively. Moreover, there was no obvious activity diminish of Ni1–Mo1–P NRs after a long-term stability and durability test.