Hydrogen Precipitation Performance of Ti-Cu Laminated Electrodes in Electrolytic Water

Currently, bonding the catalyst to the substrate by adhesive is the mainstream way to prepare electrodes for hydrogen precipitation in electrolytic water, but the adhesive itself has a high resistance and low bonding strength, and is easy to fall off. Metal Pt is currently recognized as the best metal electrode for hydrogen precipitation, but its expensive price limits the industrial use on a large scale. A self- supporting titanium- copper laminate electrode was constructed by combining titanium, which has low overpotential for gas precipitation, good stability and high strength, with copper, which has excellent electrical conductivity, through explosion welding technology. Electrochemical tests show that the laminated electrode exhibits good electrolytic hydrogen precipitation (HER) performance and conductivity and excellent stability in 1 mol/L KOH solution with a potential fluctuation of only 0.05 V at a current density of 10 mA center dot cm(-2) and a stability test time of 20 000 s. The uneven and porous surface morphology produced during operation can be used to expose more electrodes. The experimental results of hydrogen precipitation measurement in electrolytic water also verify the superior hydrogen precipitation performance of titanium- copper laminated electrodes in practice. The surface morphology exposes more active sites and electrochemically active surface area, so that the HER performance of the laminated electrode will not decrease and even slightly improves during long-time operation, which provides an effective and cost-reducing direction for electrode material preparation and has a broad engineering application prospect.