Highly active and stable nickel–molybdenum nitride (Ni2Mo3N) electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution

Sang Heon Park; Tae Hwan Jo; Min Hee Lee; Kenta Kawashima; C. Buddie Mullins; Hyung-Kyu Lim; Duck Hyun Youn

doi:10.1039/D0TA10090K

Highly active and stable nickel–molybdenum nitride (Ni₂Mo₃N) electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution†

Sang Heon Park,‡^a Tae Hwan Jo,‡^a Min Hee Lee,^b Kenta Kawashima,

^c C. Buddie Mullins,

*^c Hyung-Kyu Lim

*^a and Duck Hyun Youn

*^a

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Department of Chemical Engineering, Interdisciplinary Program in Advanced Functional Materials and Devices Development, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, Gangwon-do 24341, South Korea
E-mail: youndh@kangwon.ac.kr, hklim@kangwon.ac.kr

^b School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, South Korea

^c McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering and Department of Chemistry, Center for Electrochemistry, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, C0400 Austin, TX 78712-0231, USA
E-mail: mullins@che.utexas.edu

Abstract

This paper reports a highly active and stable nonprecious metal electrocatalyst based on bimetallic nanoscale nickel molybdenum nitride developed for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). A composite of 7 nm Ni₂Mo₃N nanoparticles grown on nickel foam (Ni₂Mo₃N/NF) was prepared through a simple and economical synthetic method involving one-step annealing of Ni foam, MoCl₅, and urea without a Ni precursor. The Ni₂Mo₃N/NF exhibits high activity with low overpotential (η₁₀ of 21.3 mV and η₁₀₀ of 123.8 mV) and excellent stability for the HER, achieving one of the best performances among state-of-the-art transition metal nitride based catalysts in alkaline media. Supporting density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that N sites in Ni₂Mo₃N with a N–Mo coordination number of four have a hydrogen adsorption energy close to that of Pt and hence may be responsible for the enhanced HER performance.

Supplementary files

Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D0TA10090K
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 15 Oct 2020
Accepted: 23 Jan 2021
First published: 25 Jan 2021

Download Citation

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2021,9, 4945-4951

Author version available

Download author version (PDF)

Permissions

Request permissions

Highly active and stable nickel–molybdenum nitride (Ni₂Mo₃N) electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution

S. H. Park, T. H. Jo, M. H. Lee, K. Kawashima, C. B. Mullins, H. Lim and D. H. Youn, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2021, 9, 4945 DOI: 10.1039/D0TA10090K

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Journal of Materials Chemistry A