Multicomponent Alloy Powders Synthesized via a Molten Salt Method and Their Electrocatalytic Performances for Seawater Electrolysis

Seeking a straightforward, cost-effective, and convenient method to fabricate multicomponent alloy powders holds great significance for their potential applications in industry. In this work, we successfully synthesized multicomponent alloy powders of CoCrFeNi and AlFeNiV via a molten salt method. Compared with traditional methods reported previously, such as mechanical alloying and gas atomization, the molten salt method demonstrates several advantages, including a simpler synthesis process, cost-effective, higher purity, lower reaction temperatures, and ease of large-scale production. Moreover, we further synthesized a P-doped multicomponent alloy catalyst (CoCrFeNi-P) through gas phosphorization and proved that it shows enhanced electrocatalytic performance in seawater electrolysis, which can achieve a current density of 100 mA cm^–2 at an overpotential of 462 mV. The CoCrFeNi-P catalyst maintained its catalytic activity for seawater electrolysis over a continuous period of 100 h. The multicomponent alloy powders reported herein hold great promise for applications in catalysis fields.