Nanoporous V-Doped Ni₅P₄ Microsphere: A Highly Efficient Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction at All pH

Hydrogen economy is one of the most promising candidates to replace the current energy system on depleting fossil fuels. As a clean and sustainable way to produce hydrogen, electrocatalytic water splitting attracts ever-increasing interest from the research community. Although the wide application of platinum group metal (PGM) catalysts is limited because of the scarcity and high cost toward hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the non-PGM electrocatalysts usually suffer from unsatisfactory activity and poor durability. In this work, we report an active and durable V-doped Ni5P4 electrocatalyst that can be used for all-pH HER. Particularly, V–Ni5P4 has an HER activity that is comparable to that of Pt in preferred alkaline media, with overpotentials as low as 13 mV and 295 mV at current densities of 10 and 1000 mA cm–2, respectively. The low-cost V–Ni5P4 that enables ultrahigh current density (i.e., at the level of A cm–2) would be of great interest to the hydrogen production industry.