Hollow Rh nanoparticles with nanoporous shell as efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract Studies on highly effective electrocatalysts for producing hydrogen via electrochemical water splitting is of great significance due to the increasing demand of clean and sustainable hydrogen energy economy. In this work, hollow RhCo nanoparticles with an average diameter of 21 nm were fabricated using the galvanic replacement method in a water-ice bath. Electrochemical evaluation showed that the as-synthesized electrocatalyst exhibited better performance for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) under acid condition, with a lower overpotential of 28.1 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and a lower Tafel slope of 24 mV dec−1, in comparison with commercial Rh/C. The better HER performance of the as-prepared hollow Rh nanoparticles could be attributed to the larger surface area than commercial Rh nanoparticles, which could provide more active sites and therefore improve the electrocatalytic performance.