Co3S4-pyrolysis lotus fiber flexible textile as a hybrid electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Electrocatalytic overall water splitting (OWS), a pivotal approach in addressing the global energy crisis, aims to produce hydrogen and oxygen. However, most of the catalysts in powder form are adhesively bounding to the electrodes, resulting in catalyst detachment by bubble generation and other uncertain interference, and eventually reducing the OWS performance. To surmount this challenge, we synthesized a hybrid material of Co3S4- pyrolysis lotus fiber (labeled as Co3S4-pLF) textile by hydrothermal and high-temperature pyrolysis processes for electrocatalytic OWS. Owing to the natural LF textile exposing the uniformly distributed functional groups (OH, NH2, etc.) to anchor Co3S4 nanoparticles with hierarchical porous structure and outstanding hydrophily, the hybrid Co3S4-pLF catalyst shows low overpotentials at 10 mA cm−2 (η10, HER = 100 mV η10, OER = 240 mV) alongside prolonged operational stability during electrocatalytic reactions. Theoretical calculations reveal that the electron transfer from pLF to Co3S4 in the hybrid Co3S4-pLF is beneficial to the electrocatalytic process. This work will shed light on the development of nature-inspired carbon-based materials in hybrid electrocatalysts for OWS.