Modifying properties and endurance of CoP by cerium doping to enhances overall water splitting in alkaline medium.

• Ce-doping results in the unique nested-like morphology. • Ce-CoP NWs/CC was prepared via hydrothermal and phosphorization method. • Ce-CoP NWs/CC exhibits excellent HER and OER activity in 1 M KOH. • It demands 1.506 and 1.624 V to deliver j 10 and j 50 , respectively. The development of efficient electrocatalyst is one of the effective ways to speed up the efficiency of water electrolysis. In this work, we prepared a nested-like Ce-doped CoP nanowires catalytic material on carbon cloth by simple hydrothermal and phosphating methods. After adjusting the doping ratio of Ce, the doping ratio (Ce/W = 6 %) with the best performance is obtained and named as Ce-CoP NWs/CC. The Ce-CoP NWs/CC exhibits preeminent electrocatalytic activity with low overpotentials with 80 and 290 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for HER and OER, respectively. Moreover, the Ce-CoP NWs/CC electrocatalyst also exhibits excellent electrochemical performance in overall water splitting with a low voltage of 1.506 V at 10 mA cm−2, outperforming many reported electrocatalysts. This work provides a feasible electrocatalytic material for the introduction of rare earth elements into water electrolysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]