ZnO doped highly porous activated charcoal-polyaniline incorporated NiP coatings as high performance electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction†

Hydrogen production via electrocatalytic water splitting has attracted significant research attention in recent years as it is a clean, sustainable, and renewable energy source. Transition metal phosphides, especially nickel phosphides and transition metal oxides, exhibit high catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution. To overcome current limitations such as high overpotential and instability of catalysts, we developed ZnO-doped highly porous activated charcoal polyaniline-incorporated NiP coatings as electrocatalysts for HER using a simple electroless coating method. The developed catalyst (AC/PANI-ZnO-NiP) exhibits low overpotential (97 mV) at 10 mA cm⁻², low Tafel slope (81 mV dec⁻¹), and high C_dl (280.9 μF). The exceptional electrochemical performance is due to the presence of a protonated NH group in PANI and increased surface roughness and porosity owing to the presence of ZnO nanoparticles.