Molybdenum oxide/nickel molybdenum oxide heterostructures hybridized active platinum co-catalyst toward superb-efficiency water splitting catalysis.

[Display omitted] • An electrocatalyst based on the Pt-MoO 3 /NiMoO 4 NRs has been fabricated for industrial-grade water splitting. • The electrolyzer using Pt-MoO 3 /NiMoO 4 NRs electrodes only required 1.55 V to achieve 10 mA cm−2. • Density functional theory calculations proved that the good synergy of the MoO 3 /NiMoO 4 and Pt benefited their catalytic performance. A new catalyst has been developed that utilizes molybdenum oxide (MoO 3)/nickel molybdenum oxide (NiMoO 4) heterostructured nanorods coupled with Pt ultrafine nanoparticles for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) toward industrial-grade water splitting. This catalyst has been synthesized using a versatile approach and has shown to perform better than noble-metals catalysts, such as Pt/C and RuO 2 , at industrial-grade current level (≥1000 mA·cm−2). When used simultaneously as a cathode and anode, the proposed material yields 10 mA·cm−2 at a remarkably small cell voltage of 1.55 V and has shown extraordinary durability for over 50 h. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations have proved that the combination of MoO 3 and NiMoO 4 creates a metallic heterostructure with outstanding charge transfer ability. The DFT calculations have also shown that the excellent chemical coupling effect between the MoO 3 /NiMoO 4 and Pt synergistically optimize the charge transfer capability and Gibbs free energies of intermediate species, leading to remarkably speeding up the reaction kinetics of water electrolysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]