Engineering In-Plane Nickel Phosphide Heterointerfaces with Interfacial sp HP Hybridization for Highly Efficient and...

The catalytic hydrogen-evolving activities of transition-metal phosphides are greatly related to the phosphorus content, but the physical origin of performance enhancement remains ambiguous, and tuning the catalytic activity of nickel phosphides (NiP₂ /Ni₅ P₄ ) remains challenging due to unfavorable H* adsorption. Here, a strategy is introduced to integrate P-rich NiP₂ and P-poor Ni₅ P₄ into in-plane heterostructures by anion substitution, in which P atoms at the in-plane interfaces perform as active sites to adsorb H* and thus facilitate the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) process via modulating the electronic structure between NiP₂ and Ni₅ P₄ . Consequently, the NiP₂ /Ni₅ P₄ hybrid exhibits an outstanding hydrogen-evolving activity, requiring only 30 and 76 mV to afford 10 and 100 mA cm^-2 in acid, respectively. It surpasses most of the earth-abundant electrocatalysts thus far, and is comparable to Pt catalysts (30/72 mV at 10/100 mA cm^-2 ). Particularly, it can run smoothly at large current density and only requires 247 mV to reach 2000 mA cm^-2 . Detailed theoretical calculations reveal that its exceptional activity stems from the moderate overlap of density states between P 2p and H 1s orbitals, thus optimizing the H*-adsorption strength. This work highlights a new avenue toward the fabrication of robust non-noble electrocatalysts by constructing in-plane heterojunctions.