Dynamically assisted electrodeposition by hydrogen bubbles on carbonized wood: A NiFeCo nanoflower electrocatalyst for efficient hydrogen evolution

The development of cost-effective, simple, and highly active catalysts for electrochemical water splitting in alkaline electrolytes to produce renewable source H2 is critical to solve the environmental pollution and energy crisis. In this study, a series of nanoflower-like NiFeCo/CW catalytic electrodes were prepared by a facile one-step dynamic hydrogen bubble template (DHBT) method for electrodeposition on carbonized wood (CW), which have excellent HER performance. By reasonably investigating the effects of H+ concentration and time, a catalyst with ideal deposition results was obtained. In 1 M KOH solution, the prepared NiFeCo/CW-450 catalyst exhibits a small overpotential of 37 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm−2, and still possess a satisfactory low overpotential when a larger current density is reached (η400 = 238 mV, η1000 = 298 mV). Furthermore, NiFeCo/CW can keep structure and catalytic performance stable after long-term test. The remarkable HER performance results from the unique nanoflower electrode structure that is uniformly dispersed on CW to fully expose the active site. As a result, this work will provide new inspiration and strategy for the preparation of novel simple, inexpensive and efficient electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution electrodes using earth-abundant resources.