Enhancing hydrogen evolution activity of triangular PtPdCu nanodarts by phosphorus incorporation

Abstract The development of effective and stable catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is desired for hydrogen production. Herein, we report a facile solvothermal approach to fabricate P-doped triangular PtPdCu nanodarts (PtPdCu-P NDs) using trioctylphosphine as phosphorus dopant. The PtPdCu-P NDs with separated branches can provide high surface areas and sufficient active sites for HER. Moreover, the incorporation of phosphorus into alloys can tailor the electronic structure and the d-band electron density of metals, which is beneficial for adsorption of hydrogen intermediates. Additionally, the phosphorus doping can effectively inhibit the metal dissolution during the electrolysis. Therefore, the PtPdCu-P NDs achieve a very low overpotential of 12 mV at current density of 10 mA cm−2, rapid kinetics (Tafel slope: 29 mV dec-1) in 0.5 M H2SO4, superior to the undoped PtPdCu NDs. Moreover, the PtPdCu-P NDs also exhibit excellent stability, without obvious structure change and activity degradation after 10,000 cycles and 50-h electrolysis. This P-doping strategy is a universal approach to incorporate phosphorus into various nanomaterials without the change of the overall morphology, which holds a high potential in the water electrolysis.