One-pot chloride-assisted corrosion engineering of nanostructured NiMoCo for enhanced alkaline hydrogen evolution

Abstract

Water electrolysis is a key technology for sustainable hydrogen production. However, the development of efficient, durable, and low-cost non-noble metal catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media remains challenging. Herein, a NiMoCo catalyst supported on nickel–molybdenum foam (NMF) is prepared by chloride-assisted corrosion in one pot. The aggressive chloride environment induces localized corrosion of the substrate, enabling the in situ co-deposition of Ni, Mo, and Co species and the formation of a porous architecture composed of nanosheet-like features with an enlarged electrochemically active surface area. Benefiting from the synergistic electronic interaction among Ni, Mo, and Co as well as the surface with abundant nanoscale features, the optimized NiMoCo catalyst delivers an ultralow overpotential of 40 mV at 10 mA cm⁻² in 1 M KOH and exhibits durability over 48 h of continuous operation. This work demonstrates an effective corrosion-driven strategy for constructing high-performance HER catalysts and provides new insights into integrating corrosion chemistry with electrocatalyst design.