Ultrahigh activity hydrogen evolution electrocatalyst was constructed by electrodeposition Mn doping strategy

The alkaline water cracking electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution process (HER) offers a wide range of applications in the production of clean hydrogen. Carefully designing highly stable and active electrocatalysts from the plenty of elements on Earth is now the main research direction. The Ni-S-Mn/NF catalyst was synthesized in situ on nickel foam (NF). The polycrystalline structure composed of MnS_2, MnS, NiS and Mn dopants greatly optimizes charge transfer and manipulates the electronic structure. Based on the results, the created Ni-S-Mn/NF material may be employed as a highly active electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution without the need for a binder. The Ni-S-Mn/NF has a much lower overpotential (41 mV at 10 mA cm⁻²) than undoped and single-phase samples, as well as the majority of documented HER catalysts. In addition, the catalysts display a prominent capacitance (C_dl) of 124.3 mF cm⁻², which indicates their excellent electrochemical performance. This discovery provides a feasible strategy for producing highly active and long-lasting HER electrocatalysts based on non-precious metals.