Conductive Ni supported NiCoO2–NiCoP nanosheets as highly active electrocatalyst toward hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline media

Abstract The development of high efficiency, earth-abundant and stable catalysts is of great significance for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In this work, the two-dimensional NiCoO2–NiCoP nanosheets with conductive Ni matrix have been developed through simple dealloying strategy to fabricate NiCoO2/Ni precursor followed by partial phosphorization under mild conditions. The synergistic effect between NiCoP and NiCoO2 in the nanosheets is beneficial to boost abundant active sites while the conductive Ni matrix gives rise to the fluent electron transfer for the HER. Compared with the NiPx and CoPx, the as-prepared NiCoO2–NiCoP/Ni nanocomposite exhibits outstanding catalytic activity and structure stability toward HER in 1 M KOH solution. A lower overpotential of 81 mV is sufficient for NiCoO2–NiCoP/Ni nanocomposite to reach the current density of 10 mA cm−2. Especially, NiCoO2–NiCoP/Ni exhibits superior catalytic durability with almost no activity decay for long-term tests over 30 h corresponding to the current density of 10 mA cm−2. With the high catalytic efficiency and excellent durability, the NiCoO2–NiCoP/Ni nanocomposite provides promising application prospects in the field of HER.