Constructing Ultra-Stable Electrocatalysts to Achieve Adaptability of Industrial-Level Alkaline Water Electrolyzers for Fluctuating Renewable Energies

Alkaline water electrolyzer (AWE) is widely considered as an environmentally-friendly technique for green H₂ production. However, it is still a great bottleneck that the AWE technology cannot meet the fluctuating renewable energies, due to the instability and poor resistant counter-current property of electrocatalysts in AWE. Herein, a high-stable and robust WMo-CoP@NM electrocatalyst is constructed by modulating the electronic structure of CoP catalysts. The catalyst not only exhibits excellent hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance at ampere-level current densities, but also presents outstanding resistant counter-current property and adaptability for multi-cycle start-stop tests in AWE, which offers an opportunity to use fluctuating renewable energies to produce H₂. Importantly, the WMo-CoP@NM (cathode)||NM (anode) electrolyzer holds an ultra-long stability over 1500 h in 30 wt.% KOH at 65 °C, which confirms their potential for practical applications. DFT calculation shows that the synergistic effect of Mo and W doping can increase the adsorption capability and optimize the electronic structure of CoP species, and therefore efficiently promote HER performance. In short, this work provides the first example via designing robust catalysts to realize the adaptability of AWE for fluctuating renewable energies, which will accelerate the coupling of AWE technology with fluctuating renewable energies for green H₂ production.