Cadmium sulfide embedded Prussian Blue as highly active bifunctional electrocatalyst for water-splitting process

Abstract

Hydrogen production by water-splitting has limited commercial application as substantial amount of energy is required for the favorable kinetics of the process. We present an interface engineering strategy for constructing a bifunctional electrode material for an efficient water splitting process. Designed cadmium sulphide and Prussian blue nanorods (CdS-NRs@PBNPs) heterostructures acts as bifunctional electrocatalyst improved water splitting performance, for both HER and OER. For HER, the optimized hybrid CdS-NRs@PBNPs (1:1) showed significantly a low overpotentials of 126 mV and 181 mV at current densities of 10 mA cm−2 and 20 mA cm−2 respectively. For OER it displays an overpotential of 250 mV and 316 mV at current densities of 10 mA cm−2 and 20 mA cm−2. Additionally, the CdS-NRs@PBNPs (1:1) has demonstrated long-term stability. The hybrid's enhanced OER and HER activity is attributable to a synergetic impact between CdS-NRs and PBNPs, as well as the active site modification due to the presence of Cadmium and iron in the hybrid.