Solid-phase hot-pressing of POMs-ZIFs precursor and derived phosphide for overall water splitting

Abstract

Rational design of electrocatalyst with high performance for both hydrogen and oxygen evolution reaction is attracting considerable attention in recent years. However, most electrocatalysts are powders and require to deposit on conductive substrates with binders, leading to complicated steps and hindering the improvement of long-term stability. This work exhibits a solid-phase hot-pressing method to prepare polyoxometalates based zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (POMs-ZIFs) precursor on carbon cloth (CC) rapidly and mildly. After phosphidation treatment, nitrogen-doped graphitic carbon layers coated phosphide on CC (CoP/MoP@NC/CC) is synthesized. CoP/MoP@NC/CC has excellent electrocatalytic performance for water splitting due to the synergistic effect of CoP, MoP and as-formed oxide/hydroxide layers. It shows the low overpotentials of 94 mV for HER and 270 mV for OER at the current density of 10 mA cm−2 in alkaline medium, which is superior to most of the reported phosphide-based electrocatalysts. Notably, the ultra-high current density of 1000 mA cm−2 can be reached at the overpotentials of only 475 mV for HER and 657 mV for OER. As both cathode and anode for overall water splitting, CoP/MoP@NC can achieve the current density of 50 mA cm−2 at the cell voltage of 1.71 V. The solid-phase hot-pressing method ensures the tight and uniform growth of the fast nucleating and stable materials on substrate and applies for more electrochemical reactions.