Amorphous Ni-B alloy nanoparticle film on Ni foam: rapid alternately dipping deposition for efficient overall water splitting

It is highly attractive, but still remains challenging, to develop noble metal-free bifunctional electrocatalysts efficient for both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline media. In this letter, we describe the rapid electroless deposition of amorphous Ni-B nanoparticle film on Ni foam (Ni-B/Ni foam) by alternative dipping of Ni foam into Ni precursor and reducing solutions. This Ni-B/Ni foam acts as an efficient and durable 3D catalytic electrode for water splitting, affording 100 mA cm−2 at 360 mV overpotential for the OER and 20 mA cm−2 at 125 mV overpotential for the HER in 1.0 M KOH, and its two-electrode electrolyzer demands a cell voltage of 1.69 V to afford 15 mA cm−2 water-splitting current. Moreover, the catalyst loading can be easily tuned and this alternately dipping deposition technique works universally for other conductive substrates.