Coupling effect and electronic modulation for synergistically enhanced overall alkaline water splitting on bifunctional Fe-doped CoBi/CoP nanoneedle arrays

Designing bifunctional electrocatalysts with high efficiency and low cost for water splitting is urgently required for the production of green hydrogen. Herein, a bifunctional iron-doped cobalt borate/cobalt phosphide hybrid supported on nickel foam (Fe-CoBi/CoP/NF) was fabricated via hydrothermal and phosphating process. Benefit from the unique nanoneedle architecture for faster mass transfer, the existence of borate on CoBi for accelerating proton transfer, the moderate adsorption of H* species on CoP, Fe doping and the synergistic effect between CoBi and CoP, Fe-CoBi/CoP/NF hybrid exhibits a low overpotential of 137 mV and 260 mV at 100 mA cm−2 for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), respectively. Moreover, Fe-CoBi/CoP/NF||Fe-CoBi/CoP/NF also presents a low cell potential of 1.65 V@100 mA cm−2 for overall alkaline water splitting and excellent durability (128 h) without decay. This work provides a new insight into the design of bifunctional electrocatalysts simultaneously through the morphological engineering and heteroatomic doping.