Introduction

Experimental section

Results and discussion

Conclusions

References

Abstract

Intrinsic activity modifying of electrocatalysts is crucial to realizing the excellent catalytic performance towards hydrogen evolution reaction. Herein, we demonstrate a highly efficient electrocatalyst based on heterogeneous cobalt phosphides nanoparticles. The ultrafine size of the as-prepared catalyst (∼۵ nm) ensures the efficient extension of active sites. Furthermore, the incorporation of orthorhombic CoP and Co2P contributes to the improvement of the inherent catalytic property. As a consequence, the as-prepared heterogeneous cobalt phosphides nanoparticles supported on carbon cloth exhibit impressive electrocatalytic activity, which only acquire a small overpotential of 90 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm−۲, and present a low Tafel slope (67.9 mV dec−۱), a large exchange current density (0.58 mA cm−۲) as well as good durability. Therefore, this work provides a favorable guidance for exploring executable strategies to improve catalyst activity.

Introduction

The excessive depletion of fossil fuels has led to many terrible issues, such as the global warming and “energy crisis”. Therefore, the urgency of developing eco-friendly and renewable energy sources attracts a large number of researchers to explore in the energy-related fields [1e4]. Hydrogen, due to its high-energy density and pollution-free combustion products, has been considered as an ideal energy carrier to replace exhaustible traditional energy in the future [5e8]. Electrochemical water-splitting is acknowledged to be the simplest method to gathering high-purity hydrogen, while it always requires highly active catalysts to decrease the overpotential and increase the reactive rate towards hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) [9e11]. Considerable studies have manifested that Pt group metals show excellent HER performance in acidic medium, but their large-scale applications are restricted due to their high economic cost and low abundance [12,13].