Molecules (Aug 2023)

Facile Electrochemical Synthesis of Bifunctional Needle-like Co-P Nanoarray for Efficient Overall Water Splitting

  • Xiong He,
  • Jiayang Cai,
  • Jie Zhou,
  • Qiyi Chen,
  • Qijun Zhong,
  • Jinghua Liu,
  • Zijun Sun,
  • Dezhi Qu,
  • Yudong Li

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28166101
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 28, no. 16
p. 6101

Abstract

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The development of low-cost and high-performance bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting is still challenging. Herein, we employed a facile electrodeposition method to prepare bifunctional cobalt phosphide for overall water splitting. The needle-like cobalt phosphide (Co-P-1) nanoarray is uniformly distributed on nickel foam. Co-P-1 exhibits excellent electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER, 85 mV at 10 mA/cm2, 60 mV/dec) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER, 294 mV at 50 mA/cm2, 60 mV/dec). The cell-voltage of 1.60 V is found to achieve the current density of 10 mA/cm2 for overall water splitting in the two-electrode system, comparable to that of previously reported Pt/C/NF||RuO2/NF. The excellent electrocatalytic performance can be attributed to the needle-like structure with more active sites, accelerated charge transfer and evolved bubbles’ release. This work can provide new approach to the development of a bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting.

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