Fluorine-anion engineering endows superior bifunctional activity of nickel sulfide/phosphide heterostructure for overall water splitting

Kaixun Li; Yun Tong; Dongmei Feng; Pengzuo Chen

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.06.061

Fluorine-anion engineering endows superior bifunctional activity of nickel sulfide/phosphide heterostructure for overall water splitting

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2022 Nov:625:576-584. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.06.061. Epub 2022 Jun 16.

Authors

Kaixun Li¹, Yun Tong², Dongmei Feng¹, Pengzuo Chen³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Surface & Interface Science of Polymer Materials of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, China.
² Department of Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Surface & Interface Science of Polymer Materials of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, China. Electronic address: tongyun@mail.ustc.edu.cn.
³ Department of Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Surface & Interface Science of Polymer Materials of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, China. Electronic address: pzchen0421@126.com.

PMID: 35749852
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.06.061

Abstract

Designing advanced transition metal-based materials for electrocatalytic water splitting is of significance, but their wide application is still limited due to the lack of an effective regulation strategy. Herein, a synergistic regulation strategy of surface/interface is developed to optimize the catalytic activity of nickel sulfide (Ni₃S₂). The construction of nickel phosphide with Ni₃S₂ heterostructure by using fluorine (F)-anion modification is successfully developed on nickel foam (F-NiP_x/Ni₃S₂-NF) via a simple fluorination and phosphating treatment. This new kind of electrocatalyst contains plenty of active sites and strong electronic interactions, presenting superior bifunctional activity for both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The overpotentials only need 182 mV and 370 mV to reach the current density of 100 mA cm^-2 for HER and OER, respectively. In addition, the F-NiP_x/Ni₃S₂-NF-based electrolyzer delivers promising performance for overall water splitting. A low potential of 1.55 V and 1.7 V can be achieved at the current density of 10 mA cm^-2 and 50 mA cm^-2. This work provides a new surface/interface regulation strategy for high-efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts.

Keywords: Bifunctional activity; Electronic interactions; F-anion modification; Heterostructure; Nickel-based material.