Cooperative Boron and Vanadium Doping of Nickel Phosphides for Hydrogen Evolution in Alkaline and Anion Exchange Membrane Water/Seawater Electrolyzers
Tingwen Zhao, Shuhao Wang, Chen Jia, Chengli Rong, Zhen Su, Kamran Dastafkan, Qiang Zhang, Chuan Zhao
Abstract
Abstract Developing low‐cost and high‐performance transition metal‐based electrocatalysts is crucial for realizing sustainable hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media. Here, a cooperative boron and vanadium co‐doped nickel phosphide electrode (B, V‐Ni 2 P) is developed to regulate the intrinsic electronic configuration of Ni 2 P and promote HER processes. Experimental and theoretical results reveal that V dopants in B, V‐Ni 2 P greatly facilitate the dissociation of water, and the synergistic effect of B and V dopants promotes the subsequent desorption of the adsorbed hydrogen intermediates. Benefiting from the cooperativity of both dopants, the B, V‐Ni 2 P electrocatalyst requires a low overpotential of 148 mV to attain a current density of −100 mA cm −2 with excellent durability. The B, V‐Ni 2 P is applied as the cathode in both alkaline water electrolyzers (AWEs) and anion exchange membrane water electrolyzers (AEMWEs). Remarkably, the AEMWE delivers a stable performance to achieve 500 and 1000 mA cm −2 current densities at a cell voltage of 1.78 and 1.92 V, respectively. Furthermore, the developed AWEs and AEMWEs also demonstrate excellent performance for overall seawater electrolysis.