Electrochemical Preparation of Ni-Mo Coated Coral-Like Cu Micro-Arrays for Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction in Acidic Solution

Abstract

Development of high-performance non-precious metal electrocatalysts for hydrogen production from water splitting in acidic media is attracting more and more interests. We describe here a two-step electrochemical method to prepare Ni-Mo coated coral-like Cu micro-arrays: (i) treatment of a smooth Cu substrate with square wave potential pulses and (ii) induced co-deposition of Ni-Mo coatings. The prepared electrode demonstrates high electrocatalytic activity close to a Pt electrode for hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs) in an acidic medium. The stability of the prepared electrode in the acidic medium is assessed by continuous cyclic voltammetry (CV) and by chronoamperometry. The enhanced electrocatalytic activity of this electrode is attributed to the high surface area and the synergistic interaction between Ni and Mo. The electrode of Ni-Mo coated coral-like Cu micro-arrays is a promising candidate of electrocatalysts for HERs in acidic media.

Electrodeposited Ni-Mo Surface Alloy @ Ni-Foam for Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Generation in Acidic and Alkaline Media

“…33 Furthermore, peaks corresponding to 232.38 eV and 235.48 eV may be ascribed to Mo 3d 5/2 and Mo 3d 3/2 , respectively manifesting the Mo 6+ oxidation state. 34 As discussed above from the XRD, EDX, and XPS data it can be inferred that the Ni-Mo alloy film is primarily composed of Ni 3 Mo phase with homogenous distribution of Ni and Mo on the Ni-foam.…”

Effects of NH4+/citrate complexing agent ratio on Ni–Mo and Ni–Mo–O electrodeposits from ammonium citrate baths

“…The deconvolution of Mo 3 days for the complexing molar ratio of 0.5 provides three peaks for each of Mo 3d 3/2 and Mo 3d 5/2 . In addition to the peaks of Mo 0 and Mo 4+ from molar ratio of 0 and 2, the Mo 6+ oxidation state is assigned to the two peaks Mo 3d 3/2 (232.44 eV) and Mo 3d 5/2 (235.59 eV) ( Rao et al, 2016 ; Gao et al, 2017 ).…”