Assembly of amorphous CoP electrocatalysts on flexible polyester textile for alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction

The design of low-price and flexible hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrode has attracted much attention on efficient utilization of sustainable hydrogen energy. Herein, we reported a facile fabrication of flexible HER electrode by anchoring CoP electrocatalyst on polyester (PET) textiles. Conductive nickel cloth (NC-PET) substrate was firstly obtained by sequentially electroless plating and electroplating of metallic Ni on textile fibers. The amorphous CoP catalyst was then assembled on the NC-PET substrate by controlled electrodeposition to obtain flexible HER electrode (CoP-NC/PET). The flexible CoP-NC/PET showed a low overpotential of 63 mV at 10 mA cm-2 for HER, with a Tafel slope of 48.09 mV dec-1 in 1 M KOH solution. The faradaic efficiency of CoPNC/PET measured at 100 mA cm-2 current density was estimated to be nearly 100%. No significant loss of HER catalytic activity was observed after 2000 cycles and 1000 times folding operations, demonstrating the high flexibility and stability of the present CoP-NC/PET electrode.