Electrolysis-enabled water splitting presents an exciting and sustainable route to produce environmentally benign fuel to power human activities. However, fundamental technological challenges remain for its economical and widespread use. Nobel metal (Pt, Pd, Ru, Ir) catalysts show high catalytic activity and durability for water splitting, however their high cost and rare existence remain as main obstacles for commercialization of this technique. Low-cost, earth abundant transition metals (Ni, Mo, Co, and Fe) and their phosphides (Ni<sub>2</sub>P, MoP, Co<sub>2</sub>P, and FeP) are emerging as promising candidates to replace precious noble metals. Their activity can be further improved by alloying with a second transition metal because of the bifunctional synergistic effects. Recently, our group reported the synthesis of Ni-Mo alloy NPs with varying crystal structures and elemental compositions as high efficiency, durable water splitting catalyst either comparable or superior to noble metal catalysts. Incorporation of phosphorous is expected to further improve the catalytic activity due to changing the geometry and creating localized negative charges that attract protons and facilitate their coupling for hydrogen production. Herein, we have used colloidal synthesis to produce two distinct crystal structures of Ni-Mo alloy NPs with a varying Mo composition (0-11.4%) and studied their chemical transformation into ternary Ni-Mo-P NPs with variable crystal structures, morphology, and compositions at moderately high temperatures. In addition, structure and composition dependent electrocatalytic activity and durability of Ni-Mo and Ni-Mo-P alloy NPs for water splitting was investigated using linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and chronoamperometry. In this presentation, effect of synthetic and physical parameters on catalytic activity and water splitting efficiency will be discussed.

Colloidal synthesis of efficient binary Ni-Mo nanoalloys catalysts and their phosphides towards water splitting

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

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