Critical insights from alloys and composites of Ni-based electrocatalysts for HER on NaCl electrolyte

NADIA YSEA; VICTORIA BENAVENTE LLORENTE; ANTONELLA LOIÁCONO; LUCRECIA LAGUCIK MARQUEZ; LILIANA DIAZ; GABRIELA I. LACCONI; ESTEBAN A. FRANCESCHINI

JOURNAL OF ALLOYS AND COMPOUNDS

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2022 vol. 915 p. 165352 - 165365

0925-8388

It is critical to minimize the cost of materials and inputs used in hydrogen production and to create solutions for large-scale generation to reduce the cost of hydrogen produced. Seawater is a natural low-cost electrolyte with high Na+ and Cl- concentrations, among other soluble salts. Chloride ions allow a highly corrosive media to the materials typically used as electrodes. In this work, we have prepared and tested different Ni-based catalysts for hydrogen evolution in NaCl-containing solutions. NiMo alloy, Ni(WO3), andNi(Nb2O5) composites are compared and studied from a critical point of view to find a viable solution for catalysis in seawater electrolysis. The NiMo catalyst presents a higher dissolution rate in the NaCl medium than all synthesized catalysts. Furthermore, Ni-based composites showed improved durability due to a decrease in dissolution, and an increase in catalytic activity when using Nb2O5 as the dispersed phase. The Ni(Nb2O5) electrodes presented the higher catalytic activity in NaCl solution, even higher than that found in NiMo catalyst.