Electrochemical Synthesis of Ni-SnO2 Composite Electrodes for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction in Alkaline Solution
Lehong Xing, Xinting Shi, Zhaoran Wang, Li Zhang, Xiaoyan Xu, Fanxu Meng, Jing Li
Abstract
In this work, high efficient Ni-SnO 2 electrodes were prepared for the alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by a simple composite electroplating method from sulphamate bath containing SnO 2 nano-particles. The Ni-SnO 2 electrode was physically characterized byscanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive analysis of X-ray (EDAX),and X-ray diffraction (XRD). These physical characterization results revealed that the homemade SnO 2 particles (about 170 nm) were successfully co-deposited in coatings. The composited SnO 2 changed the surface morphology and phase structure of Ni matrix. The electrochemical activities and stabilities for HER weremonitored bysteady-state polarization, Tafel plots, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and chronopotentiometry technique. The activity was confirmed via the quantification of H 2 gases that evolved during chronopotentiometry study. The Ni-SnO 2 showed a higher catalytic activity for H 2 evolution, compared with Ni. The OH ads on SnO 2 surface was benefit to the formation of adsorbed H ads which is the rate-determining step for HER.