Minimum and well-dispersed platinum nanoparticles on 3D porous nickel for highly efficient electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction enabled by atomic layer deposition

Abstract Conformal deposition and effective use of catalysts based on 3D electrode architectures are of great importance in electrocatalytic applications. In this work, 3D porous Ni substrate is first fabricated through a hydrogen bubbles dynamic templated method, and well-dispersed Pt nanoparticles are loaded on the substrate subsequently via atomic layer deposition. The 3D porous Ni/Pt is utilized as an efficient hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst. The 3D and high surface area structure is realized through the hydrogen bubbles dynamic templated method. The synergistic effect between atomic-layer-deposited Pt and the 3D structure of porous Ni substrate finds a new approach of minimal yet effective utilization of Pt for much enhanced HER activity. The 3D porous Ni/Pt samples show comparable activity performance with commercial 20 wt% Pt/C. Furthermore, according to the Pt mass-based calculation, only ~0.1 wt% Pt was deposited on 3D porous Ni substrate electrocatalysts which exhibits a much higher activity than the commercial 20 wt% Pt/C catalyst.