Abstract
Efficient design and preparation of cost-effective and binder-free bifunctional electrocatalysts to accelerate the hydrogen and oxygen evolution reaction (HER and OER) are critical for overall water splitting. In this work, 3D hierarchical NiFe-LDH/FeCoS2/CFC electrodes were synthesized for the first time. The carboxyl groups derived from acid treating promote the homogeneously coated FeCoS2 on CFC, giving rise to the strongly coupled FeCoS2/CFC hybrid. The NiFe-LDH exhibited the vertical growth feature on the FeCoS2/CFC composite, which can efficiently expose the active edges sites. Due to unique structure and synergistic effect between the components, the NiFe-LDH/FeCoS2/CFC exhibits significant electrocatalytic activity and stability under alkaline environments, with overpotentials of 190 and 308 mV to achieve 10 mA cm−2 for OER and HER, respectively, providing it as a promising electrocatalyst for water splitting reaction. In addition, we deeply studied the synergistic catalytic mechanism of NiFe-LDH/FeCoS2/CFC, explaining the reasons leading to the improved catalytic performance of HER and OER.
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Acknowledgements
This study was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11675098, 11975147, 21603101, 61705101), Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (Grant No. IRT_17R71), Outstanding Youth Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China (No. BK20200090), the Natural Science Foundation of Nanjing Institute of Technology (Grant No. CKJA201901), the Opening Project of Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Structural Materials and Application Technology (Grant No. ASMA20191) and the Outstanding Scientific and Technological Innovation Team in Colleges and Universities of Jiangsu Province.
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Zhang, Z., Zhou, J., Wei, H. et al. Construction of hierarchical NiFe-LDH/FeCoS2/CFC composites as efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for hydrogen and oxygen evolution reaction. J Mater Sci 55, 16625–16640 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-05182-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-05182-5