Effects of Catalyst Phase on the Hydrogen Evolution
Reaction of Water Splitting: Preparation of Phase-Pure Films of FeP,
Fe2P, and Fe3P and Their Relative Catalytic
Activities
posted on 2018-04-26, 00:00authored byDesmond
E. Schipper, Zhenhuan Zhao, Hari Thirumalai, Andrew P. Leitner, Samantha L. Donaldson, Arvind Kumar, Fan Qin, Zhiming Wang, Lars C. Grabow, Jiming Bao, Kenton H. Whitmire
The
comparative catalytic activities of iron phosphides, FexP (x = 1–3), have
been established with phase-pure material grown by chemical vapor
deposition (CVD) from single-source organometallic precursors. This
is the first report of the preparation of phase-pure thin films of
FeP and Fe2P, and their identity was established with scanning-electron
microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and powder X-ray diffraction.
All materials were deposited on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) for
evaluation of their activities toward the hydrogen evolution reaction
(HER) of water splitting in 0.5 M H2SO4. HER
activity follows the trend Fe3P > Fe2P >
FeP,
with Fe3P having the lowest overpotential of 49 mV at a
current density of 10 mA cm–2. Density functional
theory (DFT) calculations are congruent with the observed activity
trend with hydrogen binding favoring the iron-rich terminating surfaces
of Fe3P and Fe2P over the iron-poor terminating
surfaces of FeP. The results present a clear trend of activity with
iron-rich phosphide phases outperforming phosphorus rich phases for
hydrogen evolution. The films of Fe2P were grown using
Fe(CO)4PH3 (1), while the films
of FeP were prepared using either Fe(CO)4PtBuH2 (2) or the new molecule
{Fe(CO)4P(H)tBu}2 (3) on quartz and FTO. Compound 3 was
prepared from the reaction of PCl2tBu with a mixture of Na[HFe(CO)4] and Na2[Fe(CO)4] and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction,
ESI-MS, elemental analysis, and 31P/1H NMR spectroscopies.
Films of Fe3P were prepared as previously described from
H2Fe3(CO)9PtBu (4).