One-step fabrication of P-Co5.47N/Co9S8@NPC heterojunction derived from saccharomycetes cerevisiae as environment-friendly bifunctional high-efficiency electrocatalysts

The one-step green preparation of heterojunction-structured bifunctional high-efficiency electrocatalysts provides a simple method for the green, low-cost, convenient and efficient application of hydrogen energy, meanwhile it is still challenging to achieve. In the present work, the phosphorus-doped two-phase heterojunction P-Co5.47N/Co9S8@NPC nanorods was synthesized on carbon cloth (CC) as a high-quality bifunctional electrode through simple one-step chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. Saccharomycetes cerevisiae were used for the non-toxic phosphorus doping and formation of a carbon nanolayer wrapping Co5.47N/Co9S8 nanorods. Compared with the single-phase electrocatalyst Co9S8@NPC NSs/CC, P-Co5.47N/Co9S8@NPC NSs/CC exhibited more excellent electrocatalytic performance which required overpotentials of 69 mV for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), 182.5 mV for oxygen evolution reaction (OER), 1.45 V for over water splitting (OWS) at 10 mA cm-2 in KOH solution. The designed P-Co5.47N/Co9S8@NPC NSs/CC presented multiple advantages of nanorod structure, doped structure, abundant heterointerfaces, as well as dual-phase synergy, which triggered outstanding electrocatalytic performance.