Hierarchical (Ni,Co)Se2/Carbon Hollow Rhombic Dodecahedra Derived from Metal-Organic Frameworks for Efficient Water-Splitting Electrocatalysis

In this work, we demonstrate that the electrocatalytic activity of transition metal chalcogenides can be greatly enhanced by simultaneously engineering the active sites, surface area, and conductivity. Using metal-organic frameworks-derived (Ni,Co)Se-2/C hollow rhombic dodecahedra (HRD) as a demonstration, we show that the incorporation of Ni into CoSe2 could generates additional active sites, the hierarchical hollow structure promotes the electrolyte diffusion, the in-situ hybridization with C improves the conductivity. As a result, the (Ni,Co)Se-2/C HRD exhibit superior performance toward the overall water-splitting electrocatalysis in 1 M KOH with a cell voltage as low as 1.58 V at the current density of 10 mA cm(-2), making the (Ni,Co)Se-2/C HRD as a promising alternative to noble metal catalysts for water splitting. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.