Ce-doping induces rapid electron transfer in a bimetallic phosphide heterostructure to achieve efficient hydrogen production

Abstract

Using electrochemical water splitting to generate hydrogen is considered a desirable approach, which is greatly impeded by the sluggish dissociation of H₂O and adsorption and desorption of H*. Effective hydrogen production can be achieved by speeding up the chemical process with a suitable electrocatalyst. In this work, we designed and synthesized a rare earth element cerium (Ce) regulated iron–nickel bimetallic phosphide Ce-NiFeP@NF (here NiFeP represents Fe₂P/NiP₂) nanoarray with nanoflowers. For the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), Ce-NiFeP@NF only needs an overpotential of 106 mV to provide a current density of 10 mA cm⁻², compared to NiFeP@NF (175 mV@10 mA cm⁻²). This self-supported electrocatalyst Ce-NiFeP@NF with a composite morphology exhibits excellent performance in the HER. Specifically, the introduction of Ce promotes the electron transfer process at the Fe₂P/NiP₂ heterojunction interface and the Ce-NiFeP@NF nanocomposite structure with nanoflowers has a larger electrochemically active specific surface area, which is more conducive to improving the intrinsic catalytic activity. Also, a dual-electrode alkaline electrolytic cell (Ce-NiFeP@NF functions as both the anode and the cathode) operates with a cell voltage of only 1.56 V to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm⁻². The synergistic effect of rare earth element doping and heterojunction engineering can improve the morphology of intrinsic catalysts to achieve more efficient electrochemical water splitting for hydrogen production.