Interface engineering induced NiFe/Ni-Mo-S@CC heterostructure with excellent OER and HER performance

The development of high-efficiency, low-cost and stable noble-metal-free electrocatalysts for water splitting is essential for the sustainable production of hydrogen. Herein, hierarchical Ni-Mo-S nanosheet decorated by NiFe alloy nanoparticle grown on carbon cloth (NiFe/Ni-Mo-S@CC) is designed as bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting. Benefiting from the strong synergistic effect between NiFe alloy and Ni-Mo-S, the NiFe/Ni-Mo-S@CC heterostructure exhibits superior electrocatalytic activity with extremely low overpotentials of 161 mV for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at 10 mA cm-2 and 72 mV for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) at 10 mA cm-2, respectively. In addition, the alkaline electrolyzer with NiFe/Ni-Mo-S@CC as both cathode and anode yield a low cell voltage of only 1.49 V to reach the current density of 10 mA cm-2. The formation of NiFe/Ni-Mo-S@CC heterostructure provides an efficient way to develop catalysts for water splitting.

Automated summary

In this study, a hierarchical Ni-Mo-S nanosheet decorated with NiFe alloy nanoparticle grown on carbon cloth was designed as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for water splitting. The NiFe/Ni-Mo-S@CC heterostructure exhibits superior electrocatalytic activity with extremely low overpotentials, benefiting from the strong synergistic effect between NiFe alloy and Ni-Mo-S.