NiFe-based nanostructures on nickel foam as highly efficiently electrocatalysts for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions

Water splitting, as an advanced energy conversion technology, consists of two half reactions, including oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, the ideal electrocatalysts are noble metal based catalysts. Their high cost and scarcity in earth seriously restrict the large deployments. NiFe-based materials have attracted great attention in recent years due to their excellent catalytic properties for OER and HER. Nevertheless, their conductivity and electrochemical stability at high current density are unsatisfactory, resulting in ineffective water splitting due to high impedance and low stability. Recently, a series of catalysts coating NiFe-based materials on 3D nickel foam were found to be extremely stable under the circumstance of high current density. In this review, we summarized the recent advances of NiFe-based materials on nickel foam for OER and HER, respectively, and further provided the perspectives for their future development.