Porous nanosheets of Cu3P@N,P co-doped carbon hosted on copper foam as an efficient and ultrastable pH-universal hydrogen evolution electrocatalyst

Abstract

Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) catalysts typically display poor physical stability which limits their performance and commercial use. Herein we have designed and fabricated a highly robust and cost-efficient catalyst which displays excellent activity and ultrahigh stability under a variety of conditions. This is accomplished by growing porous nanosheets of a N,P co-doped carbon shell (∼4 nm) wrapped in Cu₃P on current-collector copper foam (Cu₃P@NPC-CF). The prepared self-supported Cu₃P@NPC-CF catalyst delivers pH-universal HER electrocatalytic activity with excellent overpotentials of 81.94, 192.52 and 135.45 mV at 10 mA cm⁻² in 0.5 M H₂SO₄, 1 M PBS and 1 M KOH, respectively. Moreover, Cu₃P@NPC-CF possesses ultrahigh stability with current retentions of 81.32%, 96.06% and 95.61% after 90 h of chronoamperometry (CA) tests in acidic, neutral and alkaline solutions, respectively. The self-supported Cu₃P@NPC-CF electrocatalyst exhibits excellent HER activity and ultrahigh stability in all pH solutions yet was synthesized via a facile approach. This Cu₃P@NPC-CF catalyst provides a new reference for the development of HER electrocatalysts.