Reserch On Transition Metal Phosphides As Bifunctional Catalysts

As a topic of common concern to humankind,the speed and degree of energy development have great influence on the development of human society and the progress of civilization.As non-renewable fossil fuels used by humans today are depleted and cause environmental pollution and greenhouse effects,hydrogen can be used as an alternative to fossil fuels because it is clean,pollution-free and renewable.Electrolyzed water,as an important technology for hydrogen production,has received extensive attention from researchers.Oxygen Evolution Reaction（OER）and Hydrogen Evolution Reaction（HER）are two half reactions in the reaction of electrolyzed water.There are many studies that have developed catalysts that catalyze OER and HER respectively.However,the system is complex and the cost is high.To study the bifunctional catalysts to catalyze both OER and HER is necessary.In this paper,an amorphous Ni-P compound is firstly deposited on carbon felt（CF）substrate using electroless plating.By comparing the catalytic activities of OER and HER catalyzed by different plating time catalysts,it was found that the Ni-P/CF catalyst with a plating time of 20 minutes has the best catalytic activity for catalytic OER and HER.Then use this condition to plate the amorphous NiCo-P compound on CF to get the catalyst NiCo-P/CF,the result of electrochemical shows that it has the higher catalytic activity of OER and HER,at the same time,and can be used as a bifunctional catalyst.Amorphous Ni-P compound is deposited on CF by using electroplating.By comparing the catalytic activity of OER and HER catalyzed by different plating voltage and time,it was found that Ni-P/CF-E catalyst with the plating voltage of 3 V and the plating time of 20 minutes has the best catalytic activity.Then use this condition to plate the amorphous NiCo-P compound on CF to get the catalyst NiCo-P/CF-E,through the various electrochemical results,it is found that the catalyst NiCo-P/CF-E has the higher catalytic activity of OER and HER than the catalyst Ni-P/CF-E,at the same time,its stability is also good.For catalytic OER,the catalyst has a voltage of 1.422 V（vs.RHE）when the current density is 10 mA/cm²,and it is lower than the precious metal-catalysts RuO₂.For catalytic HER,when the current density of the catalyst is-10 mA/cm²,the corresponding voltage is-0.210 V（vs.RHE）.This shows that the catalyst be used as a bifunctional catalyst to a catalyzed electrolyzed water electrode reaction has excellent catalysis and stability,and has a great prospect in the future production and application.