Bimetallic NiCoP Nanosheets Array for High-Performance Urea Electro-Oxidation and Less Energy-Intensive Electrolytic Hydrogen Production

It is highly desired to develop high efficient non-precious metal catalysts for urea oxidation and energy-saving electrolytic hydrogen production. In this communication, we report that bimetallic NiCoP nanosheets array on carbon cloth acts as a superb and stable catalyst for urea oxidation reaction (UOR) with the need of potential of 0.455 V to achieve 50 mA cm(-2) in 1.0 M KOH and 0.33 M urea. The excellent catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) enables this electrode as a bifunctional UOR and HER catalyst and its two-electrode system affords 20 mA cm(-2) at a cell voltage of only 1.25 V, 360 mV smaller than that of pure water splitting, with strong long-term electrochemical stability.