Volume 20, Issue 26 2309435
Research Article

Self-Assembled Preparation of Porous Nickel Phosphide Superparticles with Tunable Phase and Porosity for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution

Wanjie Xu

Wanjie Xu

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005 China

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Yuanzhi Chen

Corresponding Author

Yuanzhi Chen

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005 China

E-mail: [email protected][email protected]

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Markus Niederberger

Markus Niederberger

Laboratory for Multifunctional Materials, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 5, Zürich, 8093 Switzerland

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Elena Tervoort

Elena Tervoort

Laboratory for Multifunctional Materials, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 5, Zürich, 8093 Switzerland

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Jie Mei

Jie Mei

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005 China

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Dong-Liang Peng

Corresponding Author

Dong-Liang Peng

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005 China

E-mail: [email protected][email protected]

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First published: 16 January 2024
Citations: 6

Abstract

Self-assembly of colloidal nanoparticles enables the easy building of assembly units into higher-order structures and the bottom-up preparation of functional materials. Nickel phosphides represent an important group of catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) from water splitting. In this paper, the preparation of porous nickel phosphide superparticles and their HER efficiencies are reported. Ni and Ni2P nanoparticles are self-assembled into binary superparticles via an oil-in-water emulsion method. After annealing and acid etching, the as-prepared Ni-Ni2P binary superparticles change into porous nickel phosphide superparticles. The porosity and crystalline phase of the superparticles can be tuned by adjusting the ratio of Ni and Ni2P nanoparticles. The resulting porous superparticles are effective in driving HER under acidic conditions, and the modulation of porosity and phase further optimize the electrochemical performance. The prepared Ni3P porous superparticles not only possess a significantly enhanced specific surface area compared to solid Ni-Ni2P superparticles but also exhibit an excellent HER efficiency. The calculations based on the density functional theories show that the (110) crystal facet exhibits a relatively lower Gibbs free energy of hydrogen adsorption. This work provides a self-assembly approach for the construction of porous metal phosphide nanomaterials with tunable crystalline phase and porosity.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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