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

• Published in: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 28; no. 16; p. 6101
• Main Authors: He, Xiong, Cai, Jiayang, Zhou, Jie, Chen, Qiyi, Zhong, Qijun, Liu, Jinghua, Sun, Zijun, Qu, Dezhi, Li, Yudong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-08-2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Adsorption; Chemical vapor deposition; Cobalt; cobalt phosphide; Decomposition; electrodeposition; Hydrogen; needle-like structure; overall water splitting; Sodium; Spectrum analysis; China
• ISSN: 1420-3049; 1420-3049
• DOI: 10.3390/molecules28166101

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.