The interfacial synergy of hierarchical FeCoNiP@FeNi-LDH heterojunction for efficient alkaline water splitting.

[Display omitted] • FeCoNiP and FeNi-LDH hierarchical multilevel structures are constructed on CuO nanowires. • FeCoNiP@FeNi-LDH@CuO/CF exhibits excellent performance for overall water splitting in alkaline medium. • The hierarchical multilevel structure provides more active sites and accelerates the electron transport rate. • The CuO nanowire array structure improves the catalyst hydrophilic and aerophobic properties. In response to the growing demand for clean, green, and sustainable energy sources, the development of cost-effective and durable high-activity overall water splitting electrocatalysts is urgently needed. In this study, the heterogeneous structure formed by the combination of FeCoNiP and FeNi-LDH was homogeneously dispersed onto CuO nanowires generated by in-situ oxidation of copper foam as a substrate using an electrodeposition method. This multilevel structure exhibits excellent bifunctional properties as an electrode material in alkaline solutions, for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) only 206 mV and 147 mV overpotentials are needed to achieve a current density of 100 mA cm−2 respectively. Full water electrolysis is thus enabled to take place at such a low cell voltage as 1.64 V to reach the current density of 100 mA cm−2, which exhibits a long-term stability of 30 h. These improved electrocatalytic performances stem from the construction of multilevel structures. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy suggests that strong electron transfer occurs between heterogeneous structures, thus facilitating the OER and HER process. The dispersion of CuO nanowires not only increases the electrochemically active surface areas but also improves the overall hydrophilic and aerophobic properties. This work highlights the positive effect of multilevel structure in the design of more efficient electrocatalysts and provides a reference for the preparation of other low-cost, high-activity bifunctional electrocatalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]