Ni2V2O7 dandelion microsphere for a high-performance electrocatalyst in water splitting

Water splitting is an effective way to produce hydrogen to solve the energy crisis problem, and inorganic metal compounds are widely used in electrocatalysis field due to efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we synthesize Ni2V2O7 dandelion microsphere from nickel nitrate and vanadium pentoxide by “one-step hydrothermal” way, which exhibits large specific surface area of 102.74 m2 g−1. The as-prepared Ni2V2O7 microsphere shows good electrocatalysis performances including OER overpotential of 358 mV and good stability, as well as HER overpotential of 195 mV. Furthermore, the Ni2V2O7 microsphere electrode is assembled to Ni2V2O7 microsphere//Ni2V2O7 microsphere system, showing the water splitting voltage of 1.50 V at 10 mA cm−2 by two-electrode method, which is much lower than those of commercial RuO2//Pt/C system and most of spinel oxides electrocatalysts. Our work opens up a new and facile avenue for fabricating inorganic microsphere electrocatalyst in hydrogen production field.