Regulation of the adsorption sites of Ni2P by Ru and S co-doping for ultra-efficient alkaline hydrogen evolution

The development of alkaline hydrogen evolution catalysts is a demanding and highly desirable task to expand clean energy applications, but is hindered by the sluggish kinetics of alkaline electrochemical water splitting. In this work, we developed a metal-nonmetallic co-doping strategy to improve the active site number and boost the alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) kinetics of Ni2P by optimizing the electronic environment to regulate the adsorption site. Owing to the synergistic effect of the co-doping of Ru and S, the optimized Ru/S-Ni2P nanosheets required a low overpotential of only 49 mV to drive 10 mA cm(-2) for the HER, which was 132 mV lower than that of pure Ni2P. A combined experimental and density functional theory (DFT) calculation study identified that Ru and S co-dopants could reform the electronic arrangement of Ni2P to enhance charge transfer and optimize the water-adsorption energy and the H* adsorption energy for better HER activity. Such a co-doped strategy may provide opportunities for preparing efficient and stable alkaline HER electrocatalysts.

Automated summary

The development of a metal-nonmetallic co-doping strategy to optimize the electronic environment and regulate the adsorption site of Ni2P has significantly improved the kinetics of alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction. The synergistic effect of co-doping Ru and S has led to lower overpotential and better HER activity, showing promise for preparing efficient and stable alkaline HER electrocatalysts.