ZIF-8 derived Zn, Mn, S and P co-loaded on N doped carbon as efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER)

Developing low-cost electrocatalysts with excellent catalystic activity and superior stability for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is still a big challenge. In this paper, we adopted zeolitic imidazolate zinc framework (ZIF-8) as precursor to fabricate Zn, Mn, S and P co-loaded on N doped carbon (ZnMnSP/NDC) via pyrolysis, adsorption, sulphurization and phosphorization processes and investigated its catalytic activity for HER. After being carefully researched, the loading of Mn, S and P can obviously improve the catalytic activity of the catalyst for HER. Mn and P elements are loaded on porous carbon homogeneously. Zn can react with S to form ZnS. More interestingly, the loading of S element can highly improve the graphitic degree of porous carbon. Furthermore, ZnMnSP/NDC exhibits excellent long-term stability for HER in the alkaline solution. The excellent electrocatalytic performance of ZnMnSP/NDC may be attributed to the high loading of Mn, S, P element and the unique nanoparticle-embedded porous carbon structure. This work provides a valuable way to fabricate non-precious elements co-loaded N doped carbon with excellent catalytic performance for HER.