(Fe, Ni)S2@MoS2/NiS2 hollow heterostructure nanocubes for high-performance alkaline water electrolysis

Abstract

Hollow hybrid heterostructures are regarded to be promising materials as bifunctional electrocatalysts for highly efficient water electrolysis due to their intriguing morphological features and remarkable electrochemical properties. Herein, with FeNi-PBA as both a precursor and morphological template, we demonstrate the rational construct of cost-effective (Fe,Ni)S2@MoS2/NiS2 hollow hybrid heterostructures as bifunctional electrocatalysts for alkaline overall water splitting. Microstructural analysis shows that the hybrid is a kind of hierarchical heterostructure composed of MoS2/NiS2 nanosheets/nanoparticles in situ grown on hollow (Fe,Ni)S2 nanocubes with abundant heterointerfaces, which effectively maximizes the electrochemical active sites to the accessible electrolyte ions, leading to the promoted charge transfer. As expected, the hybrid shows remarkable alkaline electrocatalytic performance, such as hydrogen evolution overpotential of 176 mV and oxygen evolution overpotential of 342 mV at 50 mA cm−2, as well a cell voltage of 1.65 V at 20 mA cm−2. Moreover, the stability and durability are greatly enhanced under harsh electrochemical conditions. This study opens a new venue for developing earth-abundant bifunctional electrocatalysts with hollow hybrid heterostructures for alkaline water electrolysis in the future.