Ni foam-supported NiCoP nanosheets as bifunctional electrocatalysts for efficient overall water splitting

Ni foam-supported three-dimensional nanostructured NiCoP nanosheets were prepared and proven as high-active and durable electrocatalyst for overall water splitting. The linear sweeping voltammetry curves showed that the NiCoP/NF@NC electrode requires overpotentials of 31.8 mV for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and 308.2 mV for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) to achieve 10 mA/cm2 in 1.0 M KOH. The HER overpotential was much lower than those for NiP/NF@NC (126.6 mV) and CoP/NF@NC (112.1 mV), demonstrating NiCoP/NF@NC is superior in HER performance to CoP/NF@NC and NiP/NF@NC due to the synergistic effect. Also, for the OER catalysis, the overpotential of NiCoP/NF@NC electrode was also lower than those for NiP/NF@NC (349.1 mV) and CoP/NF@NC (383.3 mV). NiCoP/NF@NC has excellent long-term stability without obvious attenuation of performance after 10000 time cycles. The whole fabrication process is cost-effective and easy to scale-up.