Hydrazine-assisted electrochemical hydrogen production by efficient and self-supported electrodeposited Ni-Cu-P@Ni-Cu nano-micro dendrite catalyst

Abstract The emergence of high-performance noble metal-free electrodes in water splitting operations to produce hydrogen is of paramount importance to generate new energy in the future. The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in water splitting is a slow reaction that consumes much energy to produce hydrogen, and generally, replacing an anodic reaction with less thermodynamic potential can significantly improve the efficiency of hydrogen production. The hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) can be a great alternative to OER. We describe the fabrication of Ni-Cu-P@Ni-Cu nano-micro dendrite using a simple electrodeposition method. The developed Ni-Cu-P@Ni-Cu is used as a bifunctional electrode for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and HzOR. The high active electrochemical area, the porous structure and the penetration of electrolyte into the pores, the synergistic effect between Ni and Cu, and the rapid separation of the bubbles created from the surface led to the creation of an electrode with excellent electrocatalytic activity. The HER and HzOR processes required only -70 mV vs.RHE and 3.88 mV vs.RHE potentials in 1.0 M KOH and 1.0 M KOH + 0.5 M N2H4, respectively, to generate a current density of 10 mA.cm−2. Also, a very low potential of 125 mV was required in the hybrid overall water electrolysis system. This study presents a new, cost-effective, versatile, and industrial strategy to fabricate three-dimensional electrocatalysts.