Electrodeposition of amorphous Ni–Fe–Mo composite as a binder-free and high-performance electrocatalyst for hydrogen generation from alkaline water electrolysis

Exploration of efficient and earth-abundant catalysts is critical to developing hydrogen energy through electrochemical overall water splitting. In this work, highly porous three-dimensional binder-free amorphous structure NiFeO/NiMo nanospheres are synthesized on Ni foam (NF) by simple and cost-effective two-step hydrothermal and electrodeposition processes, respectively. The first findings show that the porous NiFeO/NiMoO/NF electrode has good long-term stability for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline water electrolysis and better catalytic activity (requires an overpotential of 46 mV to drive current density (j) of 10 mA cm−2). The excellent HER performance and reasonable stability of the amorphous NiFeO/NiMoO/NF electrocatalyst can be caused by the impact of intermediate coating (NiMoO) as a binder to the fabrication of the final catalyst, which enables a synergistic effect of metallic Ni, Fe, and Mo for efficient HER. Designing a multimetallic alloy represents a promising new route to developing efficient, low-cost noble-metal-free catalysts and their applications in the rising hydrogen revolution.