TY - JOUR AU - Li, Ruopeng AU - Xu, Hao AU - Yang, Peixia AU - Wang, Dan AU - Li, Yun AU - Xiao, Lihui AU - Lu, Xiangyu AU - Wang, Bo AU - Zhang, Jinqiu AU - An, Maozhong PY - 2021/05/03 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Synergistic Interfacial and Doping Engineering of Heterostructured NiCo(OH)x-CoyW as an Efficient Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution Electrocatalyst JF - Nano-Micro Letters JA - Nano-Micro Lett VL - 13 IS - SE - Articles DO - 10.1007/s40820-021-00639-x UR - https://nmlett.org/index.php/nml/article/view/886 SP - 120 AB - <p>To achieve high efficiency of water electrolysis to produce hydrogen (H<sub>2</sub>), developing non-noble metal-based catalysts with considerable performance have been considered as a crucial strategy, which is correlated with both the interphase properties and multi-metal synergistic effects. Herein, as a proof of concept, a delicate NiCo(OH)<sub>x</sub>-Co<sub>y</sub>W catalyst with a bush-like heterostructure was realized via gas-template-assisted electrodeposition, followed by an electrochemical etching-growth process, which ensured a high active area and fast gas release kinetics for a superior hydrogen evolution reaction, with an overpotential of 21 and 139&nbsp;mV at 10 and 500&nbsp;mA&nbsp;cm<sup>−2</sup>, respectively. Physical and electrochemical analyses demonstrated that the synergistic effect of the NiCo(OH)<sub>x</sub>/Co<sub>y</sub>W heterogeneous interface resulted in favorable electron redistribution and faster electron transfer efficiency. The amorphous NiCo(OH)<sub>x</sub> strengthened the water dissociation step, and metal phase of CoW provided sufficient sites for moderate H immediate adsorption/H<sub>2</sub> desorption. In addition, NiCo(OH)<sub>x</sub>-Co<sub>y</sub>W exhibited desirable urea oxidation reaction activity for matching H<sub>2</sub> generation with a low voltage of 1.51&nbsp;V at 50&nbsp;mA&nbsp;cm<sup>−2</sup>. More importantly, the synthesis and testing of the NiCo(OH)<sub>x</sub>-Co<sub>y</sub>W catalyst in this study were all solar-powered, suggesting a promising environmentally friendly process for practical applications.</p><p>Highlights:</p><p>1 A promising solar-powered environmentally friendly process for the synthesis and application of catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction has been proposed.<br>2 A delicate NiCo(OH)<sub>x</sub>-Co<sub>y</sub>W catalyst with a bush-like heterostructure was realized via gas-template-assisted electrodeposition, followed by electrochemical etching process.<br>3 The excellent catalytic effect of NiCo(OH)<sub>x</sub>-Co<sub>y</sub>W for the hydrogen evolution reaction was systematically investigated through various physical and electrochemical analyses.</p> ER -