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Foam-like NiMo coatings were produced from an inexpensive mixture of Ni, Al, and Mo powders via atmospheric plasma spraying. The coatings were deposited onto stainless-steel meshes forming a highly porous network mainly composed of nanostructured Ni and highly active Ni₄Mo. High material loading (200 mg cm⁻²) with large surface area (1769 cm² per cm²) was achieved without compromising the foam-like characteristics. The coatings exhibited excellent activity towards both hydrogen evolution (HER) and oxygen evolution (OER) reactions in alkaline media. The HER active coating required an overpotential of 42 mV to reach a current density of −50 mA cm⁻² with minimum degradation after a 24 h chronoamperometry test at −10 mA cm⁻². Theoretical simulations showed that several crystal surfaces of Ni4Mo exhibit near optimum hydrogen adsorption energies and improved water dissociation that benefit the HER activity. The OER active coating also consisting of nanostructured Ni and Ni₄Mo required only 310 mV to achieve a current density of 50 mA cm⁻². The OER activity was maintained even after 48 h of continuous operation. We envisage that the development of scalable production techniques for Ni₄Mo alloys will greatly benefit its usage in commercial alkaline water electrolysers.

Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis is widely used in hydrogen production, but its application is limited by significant electrocatalyst dissolution at the anode during the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The best performing electrocatalysts to date are based on ruthenium and iridium oxides, but these experience degradation even at moderate cell potentials. Here we investigate a quaternary Sn-Sb-Mo-W mixed oxide as a protective scaffold for ruthenium oxide. The acid-stable mixed oxide consists of an interconnected network of nanostructured oxides capable of stabilizing ruthenium into the matrix (Ru-MO). In combination with titanium fibre felt, we observed a lower degradation in the oxygen evolution reaction activity compared to unprotected ruthenium oxide after the electrochemical stress test. The superior stability of Ru-MO@Ti is attributed to the presence of MO which hinders the formation of reactive higher valence ruthenium (Ru+8). Our work demonstrates the potential of multi-metal oxides to extend the lifetime of the OER active metal and the titanium support.

Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) is a promising technology to produce high-purity renewable hydrogen gas. However, its operation efficiency is highly dependent on the usage of expensive noble metals as electrocatalysts. Replacing, decreasing, or simply extending the operational lifetime of these precious metals have a positive impact on the hydrogen economy. Mo-based electrocatalysts are often praised as potential materials to replace the Pt used at the cathode to catalyse the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Most electrocatalytic studies are performed in traditional three-electrode cells with different operational conditions than those seen in PEM systems, making it difficult to predict the expected material’s performance under industrially relevant conditions. Therefore, we investigated the viability of using three selected Mo-based nanomaterials (1T′-MoS2, Co-MoS2, and β-Mo2C) as HER electrocatalysts in PEMWE systems. We investigated the effects of replacing Pt on the catalyst loading, charge transfer resistance, kinetics, operational stability, and hydrogen production efficiency during the PEMWE operation. In addition, we developed a methodology to identify the individual contribution of the anode and cathode kinetics in a PEMWE system, allowing to detect the cause behind the performance drop when using Mo-based electrocatalysts. Our results indicate that the electrochemical performance in three-electrode cells might not strictly predict the performance that could be achieved in PEMWE cells due to differences in interfaces and porosity of the macroscopic catalyst layers. Among the catalysts studied, 1T′-MoS2 is truly an excellent candidate to replace Pt as an HER electrocatalyst due to its low overpotential, low charge transfer resistance, and excellent durability, reaching a high efficiency of ∼75% at 1 A cm-2 and 1.94 V. Our study highlights the importance of a continuous development of efficient noble-metal free HER electrocatalysts suitable for PEMWE systems.