Electrodeposition of Ni-Co-Sn alloy from choline chloride-based deep eutectic solvent and characterization as cathode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline solution

The electrodeposition of Ni-Co-Sn alloy were carried out at room temperature from the chlorine chloride (ChCl)-ethylene glycol (EG) deep eutectic solvent (DES). For comparison of properties, Ni-Sn and Co-Sn alloys were also deposited using the same solvent. Deposition mechanism, microstructure, and electrochemical properties of the deposits in 1 M KOH solution were investigated. The deposition of Ni, Co, Sn, Ni-Sn, Co-Sn and Ni-Co-Sn on platinum electrode were also studied using cyclic voltammetry. Interestingly, the electrochemical stability of DES is observed to be increased in the presence of Sn2+ ions. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns showed only Ni phases indicating that the other elements get incorporated inside the nickel matrix and the lattice constant have linear relation with Sn content in alloy. The morphologies of Ni-Sn and Ni-Co-Sn alloys were observed to be almost same with fine grains, the XRD studies confirm this. The potentiodynamic polarization measurements showed that the Ni-Co-Sn alloy exhibits the lowest corrosion current density (j(corr)), noblest corrosion potential (E-corr) and highest exchange current density (j(c)) value than the other two binary alloys, indicating that the ternary alloy is a good candidate for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER). Copyright (C) 2013, The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.