Versatile Route To Fabricate Precious-Metal Phosphide Electrocatalyst for Acid-Stable Hydrogen Oxidation and Evolution Reactions

Highly active catalyst for the hydrogen oxidation/evolution reactions (HOR and HER) plays an essential role for the water-to-hydrogen reversible conversion. Currently, increasing attention has been concentrated on developing low-cost, high-activity, and long-life catalytic materials, especially for acid media due to the promise of proton exchange membrane (PEM)-based electrolyzers and polymer electrolyte fuel cells. Although non-precious-metal phosphide (NPMP) catalysts have been widely researched, their electrocatalytic activity toward HER is still not satisfactory compared to that of Pt catalysts. Herein, a series of precious-metal phosphides (PMPs) supported on graphene (rGO), including IrP2-rGO, Rh2P-rGO, RuP-rGO, and Pd3P-rGO, are prepared by a simple, facile, eco-friendly, and scalable approach. As an example, the resultant IrP2-rGO displays better HER electrocatalytic performance and longer durability than the benchmark materials of commercial Pt/C under acidic, neutral, and basic electrolytes. To attain a current density of 10 mA cm–2, IrP2-rGO shows overpotentials of 8, 51, and 13 mV in 0.5 M dilute sulfuric acid, 1.0 M phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), and 1.0 M potassium hydroxide solutions, respectively. Additionally, IrP2-rGO also exhibits exceptional HOR performance in the 0.1 M HClO4 medium. Therefore, this work offers a vital addition to the development of a number of PMPs with excellent activity toward HOR and HER.