Nanostructured Nickel-Cobalt-Titanium Alloy Grown on Titanium Substrate as Efficient Electrocatalyst for Alkaline Water Electrolysis

One of the important challenges in alkaline water electrolysis is to utilize a bifunctional catalyst for both hydrogen evolution (HER) and oxygen evolution (OER) reactions to increase the efficiency of water splitting devices for the long durable operations. Herein, nickel-cobalt-titanium (NCT) alloy is directly grown on a high corrosion resistance titanium foil by a simple, single, and rapid electrochemical deposition at room temperature. The electrocatalytic activity of NCT alloy electrodes is evaluated for both HER and OER in aqueous electrolyte. Our NCT electrocatalyst exhibits low overpotentials around 125 and 331 mV for HER and OER, respectively, in 1 M KOH. In addition to this outstanding activity, the bifunctional catalyst also exhibits excellent OER and HER electrode stability up to 150 h of continuous operation with a minimal loss in activity. Further, the NCT alloy directly grown on titanium foil is used to directly construct membrane electrode assembly (MEA) for alkaline electrolyte membrane (AEM) water electrolyzer, which make the practical applicability. This single-step electrodeposition reveals NCT on titanium foil with high activity and excellent electrode stability suitable for replacing alternative commercial viable catalyst for the alkaline water splitting.