| Summary: | 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 (NiCl<sub>2</sub>) 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 NiCl<sub>2</sub> flowers demonstrate an excellent electrocatalytic performance towards the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), which is much superior to the NiF (303 mV) and NiCl<sub>2</sub> electrode prepared without glycerol (208 mV) in the same electrolyte solution. With a Tafel slope of 41 mV dec<sup>−1</sup>, the NiCl<sub>2</sub> flower electrode confirms improved reaction kinetics as compared to the other two electrodes, i.e., NiF (106 mVdec<sup>−1</sup>) and NiCl<sub>2</sub> obtained without glycerol (56 mV dec<sup>−1</sup>). The stability of the glycerol-based NiCl<sub>2</sub> electrode has further been carried out for 2000 cycles with the overpotential diminution of just 8 mV, approving an electrocatalyst potential of glycerol-based NiCl<sub>2</sub> electrode towards HER kinetics. This simple and easy growth process involves nucleation, aggregation, and crystal growth steps for producing NiCl<sub>2</sub> nanostructures for electrocatalytic water splitting application through the HER process.
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