Abstract
It is necessary to design reasonably efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst, but it is still a difficult problem for the water and urea electrolysis. Therefore, we firstly constructed a novel Mo–[email protected]/NiXCoYH2PO2 ([email protected]/NiXCoYH2PO2) core/shell nanorod heterostructure by hydrothermal and two-step phosphating on nickel foam (NF). It is worth noting that Mo-doping could availably regulate the electronic structure of NiCoP(NCP), resulting in the increased exposure of the active center and the increased inherent activity of each site. Furthermore, a strategy of improving catalyst activity was proposed, that is, the NiCoP nanorod core and Mo–NiCoP/NiXCoYH2PO2 nanorod shell was constructed by the two phosphating reactions to come into being mixed transition-metal phosphides (TMPs), thus improving the synergistic catalytic effect of the material. In addition, the water and urea electrolysis apparatus was installed from two [email protected]/NiXCoYH2PO2 electrodes to actuate a current density of 10 mA cm−2, the necessary cell voltage was merely 1.348 V in 1.0 M KOH with 0.5 M urea for urea electrolysis, while the higher 1.522 V of cell voltage was required in 1.0 M KOH for water electrolysis, which is one of the best catalytic activities reported so far. Experimental results show that the oxyhydroxide is the real active site during urea electrolysis process. Density functional theory calculation shows that the doping of Mo and Co increase the water adsorption energy and conductivity of the oxyhydroxide material, so the water splitting performance of the catalyst is improved. Therefore, this work provided a new way to design bifunctional electrocatalysts by Mo-doping and two-step phosphating process.
Published Version
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