Construction of core-shell heterostructure NiO@Co0.5Fe0.5P as efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting

Design and synthesis of cheap and high-efficient bifunctional catalysts for both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are very important for the large-scale H2 production by water splitting. In this work, a series of core-shell nanostructure NiO-x@Co0.5Fe0.5P/CC have been fabricated by an easy synthetic strategy and served as bifunctional electrocatalytic electrode for overall water splitting. Owing to the heterostructure and interaction between the outer NiO nanoparticles shell and inner Co0.5Fe0.5P nanowires core, the optimal [email protected]0.5Fe0.5P/CC catalytic electrode exhibits admirable catalytic performance both for HER and OER (73 mV and 262 mV at 10 mA cm−2, respectively) in 1 M KOH solution. As a result, the water electrolysis device based on [email protected]0.5Fe0.5P/CC || [email protected]0.5Fe0.5P/CC system only needs 1.585 V to offer the current density of 10 mA cm−2 and keeps excellent durability for 40 h, suggesting its great practical application value for overall water splitting.