Fabrication of 3D ordered mesoporous nickel phosphide for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

This article successfully fabricates ordered mesoporous nickel phosphide (OM-Ni2P) by a nanocasting method using KIT-6 as the template and nickel nitrate as the nickel precursor. The synthesized OM-Ni2P catalyst perfectly repeats the highly symmetrical mesoporous structure of KIT-6 and exhibits a large amount of the active Ni substance Niδ+ and the active P substance Pδ−. The ordered mesoporous structure not only promotes electron transfer but also facilitates the diffusion of the reaction medium. OM-Ni2P shows superior hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalytic performance than the CA-Ni2P catalyst with a disordered mesoporous structure. The OM-Ni2P material is promising to be a substitute to Pt-based electrocatalysts for hydrolysis.