Modulating interfacial charge distribution of Ni2P-NiSe2 by multiple interface engineering for accelerating water splitting with industry-level activity and stability

Abstract

Suitable electrocatalysts for industrial water splitting can veritably promote practical hydrogen applications. Guided by density functional theory calculations, the interface-rich Ni2P-NiSe2 nanoparticles anchored on amorphous MoOx nanorods on nickel foam (Ni2P-NiSe2/MoOx/NF) are fabricated. Ni2P-NiSe2/MoOx/NF exhibits exceptional HER performance with overpotentials of 23 and 263 mV at 10 and 500 mA cm−2, outperforming most reported non-Pt based electrocatalysts reported hitherto. Remarkably, the excellent oxygen evolution activity (241 mV at 10 mA cm−2) of Ni2P-NiSe2/MoOx/NF further realizes the full electrolyzer requiring the voltage of 1.63 V at 50 mA cm−2 with robust stability (1000 h at 20 mA cm−2) in 1.0 M KOH. At industrial conditions (30% KOH, 65 °C), only 2.02 V is required to reach 1000 mA cm−2 with satisfying durability (200 h at 200 mA cm−2). When deployed in anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer, the catalyst achieves 1.3 A cm−2 at 2.7 V, associated with the prolonged stability.