Search

The electrolysis of water is currently the most promising method for hydrogen production. Developing low-cost, highly active, and stable electrocatalysts is crucial for advancing large-scale industrial electrolysis of water for hydrogen production. Fe-CoMoP/NF electrocatalysts were fabricated on nickel foam (NF) by a simple cation exchange method. Benefiting from the synergistic effect of multiple metals and the ordered distribution of multi-level nanosheets, Fe-CoMoP/NF demonstrates outstanding bifunctional electrocatalytic performance for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in 1 M KOH solution, with overpotentials of 205 mV and 94 mV at 10 mA cm−2, respectively. Moreover, the electrolytic cell assembled with this catalyst as the cathode and anode can achieve a current density of 10 mA cm−2 with a cell voltage of only 1.55 V and can operate stably for more than 115 h. The excellent performance of Fe-CoMoP/NF is attributed to the inherent HER activity and high conductivity of phosphide, as well as the slow introduction of Fe ions, which can regulate the charge density around Co and Mo, thus maintaining the integrity of the nanostructured Fe-CoMoP/NF and exposing a larger active surface area. This work offers an effective strategy for preparing high-efficiency, low-cost integrated water splitting reaction electrodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The mesoporous rod-shaped NFO H is synthesized through the electrospinning process followed by annealing. • NFO H exhibits excellent OER activity and stability. • One-dimensional mesoporous nanorod structures can expose more electrochemical active sites and enhance conductivity. • The carbonization of high polymer materials in the spinning mixture reduces particle aggregation and leaves improved mass transfer channels in the subsequent oxidation process. Designing and preparing efficient and stable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts is crucial to improve water splitting performance. One-dimensional (1D) structural catalysts have received increasing attention for the OER due to their unique structural characteristics. In this study, 1D mesoporous NiFe 2 O 4 (NFO) spinel nanorods are fabricated by electrospinning, and the differences in physical structure and electrochemical performance of NFO nanorods prepared by different electrospinning precursors are investigated. It is found that the NFO nanorods prepared by precursor of nickel-iron hydroxide particles (denoted as NFO H) exhibit a diameter of approximately 200 nm and a surface area of 26.4 m2 g−1. In 1 M KOH solution, NFO H nanorods achieve low overpotentials of respective 316 mV and 396 mV to obtain current densities of 10 mA cm−2 and 50 mA cm−2, as well as a low Tafel slope of 67.2 mV dec−1, even lower than commercial NFO. Notably, the nanorods also demonstrate excellent long-term stability. The high OER activity can be attributed to the small nanoparticle size, abundant electrochemical active sites provided by the 1D mesoporous nanostructure, and increased conductivity, which promote charge/electron transfer and enhance the conversion of active species, thereby improving the efficiency of water electrolysis. This work may broaden the perspective and approach for the structural design of OER catalysts. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]