Electrodeposition of cobalt-iron bimetal phosphide on Ni foam as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for efficient overall water splitting

Donghong Duan; Desheng Guo; Jie Gao; Shibin Liu; Yunfang Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.04.127

Electrodeposition of cobalt-iron bimetal phosphide on Ni foam as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for efficient overall water splitting

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2022 Sep 15:622:250-260. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.04.127. Epub 2022 Apr 28.

Authors

Donghong Duan¹, Desheng Guo², Jie Gao², Shibin Liu², Yunfang Wang²

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, PR China. Electronic address: dhduan@163.com.
² College of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, PR China.

PMID: 35512589
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.04.127

Abstract

To solve environmental pollution and energy crisis, it is essential to design an efficient, economical, and stable bifunctional electrocatalyst for water splitting to produce renewable energy sources H₂ and O₂. In this study, low-crystallinity and microspherical CoFe-P/NF catalyst synthesized by potentiostat electrodeposition on a foam nickel substrate had an excellent hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and water splitting performance. In 1 M KOH solution, the CoFe-P/NF required the overpotentials of 45 mV for HER and 287 mV for OER in order to create a current density of 10 mA cm^-2. Furthermore, the Tafel slope for HER and OER was measured as 35.4 and 43.2 mV dec^-1, respectively. Serving as the bifunctional catalysts, the CoFe-P/NF electrode couple displays a low voltage of only 1.58 V at 10 mA cm^-2 with an excellent long-term stability. Such remarkably properties of the CoFe-P/NF are attributed to the crystalline-amorphous phase structure, the synergistic effect of Co, Fe and P, and rapid separation of bubbles from the electrode surface. In summary, this study provides a new method for developing cost-effective catalyst towards green hydrogen production via water splitting.

Keywords: Cobalt-iron phosphide; Electrodeposition; Hydrogen evolution reaction; Oxygen evolution reaction; Water splitting.