Ni–Mo Nanopowders for Efficient Electrochemical Hydrogen Evolution
Abstract
Earth-abundant metals are attractive alternatives to the noble metal composite catalysts that are used in water electrolyzers based on proton-exchange membrane technology. Ni–Mo alloys have been previously developed for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), but synthesis methods to date have been limited to formation of catalyst coatings directly on a substrate. We report a method for generating unsupported nanopowders of Ni–Mo, which can be suspended in common solvents and cast onto arbitrary substrates. The mass-specific catalytic activity under alkaline conditions approaches that of the most active reported non-noble HER catalysts, and the coatings display good stability under alkaline conditions. We have also estimated turnover frequencies per surface atom at various overpotentials and conclude that the activity enhancement for Ni–Mo relative to pure Ni is due to a combination of increased surface area and increased fundamental catalytic activity.
Additional Information
© 2012 American Chemical Society. Received: October 26, 2012. Revised: November 30, 2012. Published: December 3, 2012. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation "Powering the Planet" Center for Chemical Innovation (CHE- 0802907). We thank Carol M. Garland for assistance with transmission electron microscopy. J.R.M. acknowledges the Department of Energy, Office of Science for a graduate research fellowship. C.A.W. thanks the Caltech Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program for support during the summer of 2012. B.F.S. acknowledges the Beckman Institute for a postdoctoral fellowship.Attached Files
Published - cs300691m.pdf
Supplemental Material - cs300691m_si_001.pdf
Supplemental Material - cs300691m_si_002.xlsx
Files
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 37403
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20130308-080802822
- NSF
- CHE-0802907
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Caltech Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)
- Caltech Beckman Institute
- Created
-
2013-04-11Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Kavli Nanoscience Institute, CCI Solar Fuels