Tellurium Triggered Formation of Te/Fe-NiOOH Nanocubes as an Efficient Bifunctional Electrocatalyst for Overall Water Splitting

The electrocatalyzed oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions (OER/HER) are the key constituents of water splitting toward hydrogen production over electrolysis. The development of stable non-noble nanomaterials as bifunctional OER/HER electrocatalysts is the foremost bottleneck to commercial applications. Herein, the fabrication of Te-modulated FeNiOOH nanocubes (NCs) by a novel tailoring approach is reported, and the doping of Te superbly modulated the local electronic structures of Fe and Ni. The Te/FeNiOOH-NC catalyst displays better mass and electron transfer ability, exposure of plentiful OER/HER edge active centers on the surface, and a modulated electronic structure. Accordingly, the as-made Te/FeNiOOH-NC catalyst reveals robust OER activity (overpotential of 0.22 V@10 mA cm–2) and HER activity (overpotential of 0.167 V@10 mA cm–2) in alkaline media. Considerably, this bifunctional catalyst facilitates a high-performance alkaline water electrolyzer with a cell voltage of 1.65 V at 10 mA cm–2. This strategy opens up a new way for designing and advancing the tellurium dopant nanomaterials for various applications.