Hydrogen has the potential to revolutionise how we produce and consume energy. We can meet energy demands without compromising the environment by using renewable sources such as wind, solar and wave power producing low-cost electricity to split the water molecule into its constituent parts. We could then convert Hydrogen back to electricity using a fuel cell, as illustrated in Figure 1. The by-product in this entire process is water, giving a clean technology with no toxic or greenhouses gases. Currently the best performing electrocatalytic materials for water splitting are noble metal based, namely platinum for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and Ruthenium for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The use of these materials is unsustainable and makes fuel cells too expensive for commercial applications. We must engineer sustainable, cost-effective alternatives.Nickel foam electrodes display desirable electrocatalytic properties such as a large surface area compared to volume with highly conducting, porous networks, while transition metal dichalcogenides show very good electronic properties with high surface areas and large active sites. In this work we show that it is possible to electrochemically and solvothermally produce CoSex and CoSex composites on a porous nickel foam electrode (NFE). The best performing materials were selected and evaluated via electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. This analysis showed high electrochemical active surface area (ECSA) values and good stability across the selected materials. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images reveal that the surfaces of the synthesized materials exhibit distinct morphologies and have been significantly modified. Further electrochemical evaluation of the materials reveals low overpotentials for both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) thus showing promise as a potential bi-functional electrocatalyst in overall water splitting.References(1) Chaudhari, N. K.; Jin, H.; Kim, B.; Lee, K. Nanostructured Materials on 3D Nickel Foam as Electrocatalysts for Water Splitting. Nanoscale. 2017. https://doi.org/10.1039/c7nr04187j.(2) Minadakis, M. P.; Tagmatarchis, N. Exfoliated Transition Metal Dichalcogenide-Based Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Evolution Reaction. Advanced Sustainable Systems. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1002/adsu.202300193.(3) Sukanya, R.; da Silva Alves, D. C.; Breslin, C. B. Review—Recent Developments in the Applications of 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenides as Electrocatalysts in the Generation of Hydrogen for Renewable Energy Conversion. J Electrochem Soc 2022, 169 (6). https://doi.org/10.1149/1945-7111/ac7172. Figure 1