Nanostructured Amorphous Nickel Boride for High-Efficiency Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution over a Broad pH Range

摘要

A fruitful paradigm in the development of low-cost and efficient water splitting systems for hydrogen generation is to search the highly active non-noble catalysts towards hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Here, the electrocatalytic HER activity of nanostructured amorphous nickel boride (Ni-B) alloy has been investigated. Amorphous Ni-B has exhibited excellent catalytic efficiency and long-term stability for HER over a broad pH range, which is actually comparable to the performance of Pt. This high catalytic activity is due to the amorphous structure and the moderate electron structure of Ni-B. The Ni-B catalyst is easily obtained via electroless plating technique and we could get a supported Ni-B catalyst on desired substrates. Given the low cost, abundance, corrosion resistance, high efficiency and ease of fabrication, amorphous Ni-B is among the best alternatives to noble metal hydrogen evolution catalysts for water splitting.