Nanoporous Amorphous Fe78Si9B13 Alloys for Hydrogen Evolution in Alkaline Media

A serious of corrosion treatments are applied upon a melt-spun amorphous Fe78Si9B13 alloy to fabricate nanoporous structure for improving the alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performances. The corrosion treatment produces a large number of nanopores on the surface, leading to remarkably improved HER performances. By corroding in 2M NaOH solution for 120 min, abundant pores with a diameter of about 50 similar to 100 nm were uniformly formed on the surface of the amorphous alloy. The nanoporous amorphous alloy can obtain a current density of 10 mA cm(-2) at the overpotential of only 199 mV in 1M KOH environment, which is significantly reduced from that of the original melt-spun alloy of 386 mV under the same conditions. The corroded sample also shows excellent cycling performances. Microstructural study shows that after 1000 CV cycles the nanoscale columnar structure formed on the surface of the corroded sample are denser and larger than that of the melt-spun alloy, which effectively inhibit the increase range of the polarization resistance of the alloy.

Automated summary

Corrosion treatment on amorphous Fe78Si9B13 alloy creates nanoporous structure, significantly enhancing the performance of alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and showing excellent cycling performances. The nanoscale columnar structure formed on the surface of the corroded sample effectively inhibits the increase range of the polarization resistance of the alloy after 1000 CV cycles.