Nickel foam-supported Ru-doped NiCoP nanowire arrays as high-efficiency and durable electrocatalysts for alkaline hydrogen evolution

The development of efficient and robust electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media is essential for sustainable hydrogen production, yet remains challenging due to sluggish kinetics and insufficient active sites. Herein, this paper fabricates a ruthenium doped NiCoP nanowire arrays on nickel foam (Ru-NiCoP/NF) through a tailored hydrothermal etching phosphorization route. The introduced Ru not only modulates the electronic structure of NiCoP, optimizing the hydrogen adsorption free energy, but also induces a controlled etching effect that preserves a three dimensional flower like nanoarchitecture, thereby exposing abundant accessible active sites and facilitating mass/charge transport. As a result, the Ru NiCoP/NF electrode achieves outstanding alkaline HER performance, requiring an ultralow overpotential of 55 mV at 10 mA cm −2 , delivering a Tafel slope of 77.6 mV·dec −1 , and maintaining remarkable stability over 120 h of continuous operation. This work demonstrates a rational design strategy that couples targeted doping with morphological engineering to advance high performance transition metal phosphide electrocatalysts for energy conversion applications.