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Flexible cobalt phosphide network electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution at all pH values

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Abstract

High-performance electrocatalysts for water splitting at all pH values have attracted considerable interest in the field of sustainable hydrogen evolution. Herein, we report an efficient electrocatalyst with a nanocrystalline cobalt phosphide (CoP) network for water splitting in the pH range of 0–14. The novel flexible electrocatalyst is derived from a desirable nanocrystalline CoP network grown on a conductive Hastelloy belt. This kind of self-supported CoP network is directly used as an electrocatalytic cathode for hydrogen evolution. The nanocrystalline network structure results in superior performance with a low onset overpotential of ~45 mV over a broad pH range of 0 to 14 and affords a catalytic current density of 100 mA·cm−2 even in neutral media. The CoP network exhibits excellent catalytic properties not only at extreme pH values (0 and 14) but also in neutral media (pH = 7), which is comparable to the behavior of state-of-the-art platinum-based metals. The system exhibits an excellent flexible property and maintains remarkable catalytic stability during continuous 100-h-long electrolysis even after 100 cycles of bending/extending from 100° to 250°.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support from the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2015CB358600), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21527805), the Excellent Young Scholar Fund from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21422103), Jiangsu Fund for Distinguished Young Scientist (No. BK20140010), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20151228), the Natural Science Foundation in High Education of Jiangsu Province (16KJB430024), and Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (No. 20133201120028).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Film and Integrated Devices, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China

    Jianwen Huang, Yanrong Li & Jie Xiong

  2. College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Institute of Chemical Power Sources & Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215006, China

    Jianwen Huang, Yufei Xia, Juntong Zhu, Qinghua Yi, Hao Wang, Yinghui Sun & Guifu Zou

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  1. Jianwen Huang
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  2. Yanrong Li
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  3. Yufei Xia
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  9. Guifu Zou
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Correspondence to Jie Xiong, Yinghui Sun or Guifu Zou.

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Huang, J., Li, Y., Xia, Y. et al. Flexible cobalt phosphide network electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution at all pH values. Nano Res. 10, 1010–1020 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1360-y

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