Ultrafine MoP Nanoparticles Well Embedded in Carbon Nanosheets as Electrocatalyst with High Active Site Density for Hydrogen Evolution

Electrocatalysis of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a promising route for sustainable hydrogen production based on water splitting. Designing MoP nanoparticles as catalysts is a feasible strategy to enhance the electrocatalytic performance for HER. In response, we report the fabrication of ultrafine MoP nanoparticles (NPs) which are uniformly embedded on glucose derived phosphorus and nitrogen co-doped carbon nanosheets (MoP/NPG) as an effective electrocatalyst for HER via a novel and simple solid-state reaction. Transmission electron micro scopy reveals that the resulting product exhibits an average size of 3.15 nm. Due to the presence of exposed active sites in ultrafine MoP NPs and the laminar structure of carbon nano sheets, the MoP/NPS shows remarkable high catalytic activity having a low overpotential of 90 and 115 mV to achieve the current density of 10 mAcm(-2) in both, acidic and alkaline media, which demonstrates the promising potential for an application in sustainable energy production.