عنوان	Facile Aqueous Route to Large-Scale Superhydrophilic TiO2-Incorporated Graphitic Carbon Nitride Coated Ni(OH)2 and Ni2P Nano-Architecture Arrays as Efficient Electrocatalyst for Enhanced Hydrogen Production
نوع پژوهش	مقاله چاپ‌شده در مجلات علمی
کلیدواژه‌ها	PAN/ZnCl2, graphitic carbon fiber, Nickle phosphide, g-C/TiO2/Ni2P, electrocatalyst, hydrogen evolution reaction, wet spinning
چکیده	Water splitting by an electrochemical method to generate the hydrogen gas is an economic and green approach to resolve looming energy and environmental crisis. Designing a composite electrocatalyst having integrated multi-channel charge separation, robust stability and low-cost facile scalability could be considered to address the issue of electrochemical hydrogen evolution. Herein, we report a superhydrophilic free-noble bimetallic TiO2/Ni2P coated on graphitic polyacrylonitrile carbon fibers (g-C/TiO2/Ni2P) using facile hydrothermal followed by phosphorylation. In an aqueous-based route the PAN is dissolved in water in the presence of ZnCl2, followed by wet spinning to prepare saleable PAN/ZnCl2 fibers. The nitrogen-contained porous graphitic carbon fibers are prepared via pyrolysis of PAN/ZnCl2 fibers, now ZnCl2 acts as a volatile porogen to form porous matrix structures. Finally, the as-prepared graphitic carbon fibers are electrochemically activated by incorporating TiO2/Ni2P active sites. The materials formed in this work show an excellent electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction. The as-synthesized g-C/TiO2/Ni2P catalyst show less overpotential, its electrocatalytic activity is improved and its efficiency is better than the commercial Pt/C catalyst. In the current density of -10 mA/cm2, the g-C/TiO2/Ni2P catalyst show an overpotential of 55 mV, while the commercial Pt/C catalyst show an overpotential of 77 mV. Our work is a facile aqueous scalable route with no need to noble metals that can be considered as a potential alternative for the commercial Pt/C catalyst.
پژوهشگران	زاهد شمی (نفر اول)، سید آراد (سید روح الله ) درخشان (نفر دوم)، رزگار احمدی (نفر سوم)