Journal article
Nickel-silver alloy electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution and oxidation in an alkaline electrolyte
Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP, v 16(36), pp 19250-19257
01 Jan 2014
PMID: 25098811
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
The development of improved catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) in basic electrolytes remains a major technical obstacle to improved fuel cells, water eIectrolyzers, and other devices for electrochemical energy storage and conversion. Based on the free energy of adsorbed hydrogen intermediates, theory predicts that alloys of nickel and silver are active for these reactions. In this work, we synthesize binary nickel silver bulk aoys across a range of compositions and show that nickel silver aoys are indeed more active than pure nickel for hydrogen evolution and, possibly, hydrogen oxidation. To overcome the mutual insolubility of silver and nickel we employ electron-beam physical vapor codeposition, a Low-temperature synthetic route to metastable aoys. This method aka produces fiat and uniform films that facilitate the measurement of intrinsic catalytic activity with minimal variations in the surface area, ohmic contact, and pore transport. Rotating-disk-electrode measurements demonstrate that the hydrogen evolution activity per geometric area of the most active catalyst in this study, Ni0.75Ag0.25, is approximately twice that of pure nickel and has comparable stabdity and hydrogen oxidation activity. Our experimental results are supported by density functional theory calculations, which show that bulk alloying of Ni and Ag creates a variety of adsorption sites, some of which have near-optimal hydrogen binding energy.
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Details
- Title
- Nickel-silver alloy electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution and oxidation in an alkaline electrolyte
- Creators
- Maureen H. Tang - Stanford UniversityChristopher Hahn - Stanford UniversityAidan J. Klobuchar - Stanford UniversityJia Wei Desmond Ng - Stanford UniversityJess Wellendorff - Stanford UniversityThomas Bligaard - Stanford UniversityThomas F. Jaramillo - Stanford UniversitySLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Publication Details
- Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP, v 16(36), pp 19250-19257
- Publisher
- Royal Soc Chemistry
- Number of pages
- 8
- Grant note
- Tom Kat Grant for Energy Research at Stanford University National Science Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF) Abbott Laboratories Stanford Graduate Fellowship; Abbott Laboratories Department of Energy for SUNCAT; United States Department of Energy (DOE)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Chemical and Biological Engineering
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000341299500021
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84906545669
- Other Identifier
- 991019299003104721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Chemistry, Physical
- Physics, Atomic, Molecular & Chemical