Amorphous CoFeB on nickel foam as a high efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

The development of high-performance, low cost and earth abundant catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is desired. This work presents amorphous CoFeB supported on nickel foam (NF), prepared by a facial chemical reduction method, as an active catalyst for HER in alkaline solution. Structure characterization indicated that with the incorporation of Fe atom, CoFeB catalysts exhibit similar petal-like granular morphology as CoB. The optimal CoFeB/NF-0.15 catalyst exhibits Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of 27.4 m2 g−1, nearly two times larger than 13.2 m2 g−1 for CoB, suggesting higher specific surface area. CoFeB/NF-0.15 catalyst shows excellent HER performance and reaches −10 mA cm−2 at overpotential of 35 mV in alkaline solution, and Tafel slope of 84.7 mV dec−1, indicative of Volmer-Heyrovsky reaction mechanism. The synergistic effect among Fe, Co and B atoms and the more exposed active sites as well as faster electron transfer kinetics collectively contributed to the improved intrinsic activity of CoFeB for HER. Moreover, CoFeB/NF-0.15 exhibits good stability for over 16 h.