Unveiling the Synergistic Effect of Atomic Iridium Modulated Zirconium-Doped Pure Phase Cobalt Phosphide for Robust Anion-Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzer

Abstract

Green hydrogen production is emerging as an essential task for future energy. Water splitting is an effective approach to yield green hydrogen with high purity. However, expensive electrocatalysts are required that can increase the production cost. Herein, a novel procedure is proposed to incorporate iridium single atoms into zirconium-doped pure-phase cobalt phosphide (Ir@Zr–CoP) that can adjust the electronic properties and enhance the electrochemical active sites. When Ir@Zr–CoP serves as a bifunctional catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), it requires a low overpotential of 74 and 292 mV to accomplish a current density of 10 mA cm−2. Remarkably, when the Ir@Zr–CoP based electrode is assembled as a large-scalable anion-exchange membrane water electrolyzer, the device requires a small cell voltage of only 1.88 V to obtain a current density of 1.0 A cm−2 with high stability for 150 h.