Hydrogen Evolution Reaction Activities of Room-Temperature Self-Grown Glycerol-Assisted Nickel Chloride Nanostructures

Three-dimensional nanomaterials of desired structural/morphological properties and highly porous with a high specific surface area are important in a variety of applications. In this work, glycerol-mediated self-growth of 3-D dandelion flower-like nickel chloride (NiCl₂) from nickel-foam (NiF) is obtained for the first time using a room-temperature (27 °C) processed wet chemical method for electrocatalysis application. Glycerol-mediated self-grown NiCl₂ flowers demonstrate an excellent electrocatalytic performance towards the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), which is much superior to the NiF (303 mV) and NiCl₂ electrode prepared without glycerol (208 mV) in the same electrolyte solution. With a Tafel slope of 41 mV dec⁻¹, the NiCl₂ flower electrode confirms improved reaction kinetics as compared to the other two electrodes, i.e., NiF (106 mVdec⁻¹) and NiCl₂ obtained without glycerol (56 mV dec⁻¹). The stability of the glycerol-based NiCl₂ electrode has further been carried out for 2000 cycles with the overpotential diminution of just 8 mV, approving an electrocatalyst potential of glycerol-based NiCl₂ electrode towards HER kinetics. This simple and easy growth process involves nucleation, aggregation, and crystal growth steps for producing NiCl₂ nanostructures for electrocatalytic water splitting application through the HER process.