Ultrafine phosphorus-doped rhodium for enhanced hydrogen electrocatalysis in alkaline electrolytes

Abstract

Herein, we report the synthesis of an ultrafine P-doped Rh catalyst and its outstanding HER/HOR performance in alkaline electrolytes. Experimental analysis and density functional theory calculations reveal that the synergistic tailoring of the electronic structure of Rh through P doping could lead to the reduction of the limiting potential of alkaline HER/HOR, which contributes to the remarkable catalytic performances with about 22-fold enhancement compared with that of Rh/C and commercial Pt/C towards alkaline HER. In addition, P–Rh/C also exhibits excellent catalytic performance towards alkaline HOR, with the exchange current density normalized by metal mass as 0.683 mA μg_Metal⁻¹, much higher than that of Rh/C and commercial Pt/C.