Engineering an Earth‐Abundant Element‐Based Bifunctional Electrocatalyst for Highly Efficient and Durable Overall Water Splitting

By Z. Kang, Huijing Guo, Jing Wu, Xu Sun, Zheng Zhang, Qingliang Liao, Suicai Zhang, Haonan Si, Pingwei Wu, Li Wang and 1 more. Advanced Functional Materials, 2019

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The simultaneous and efficient evolution of hydrogen and oxygen with earth‐abundant, highly active, and robust bifunctional electrocatalysts is a significant concern in water splitting. Herein, non‐noble metal‐based Ni–Co–S bifunctional catalysts with tunable stoichiometry and morphology are realized. The engineering of electronic structure and subsequent morphological design synergistically contributes to significantly elevated electrocatalytic performance. Stable overpotentials (η10) of 243 mV (vs reversible hydrogen electrode) for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and 80 mV for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), as well as Tafel slopes of 54.9 mV dec−1 for OER and 58.5 mV dec−1 for HER, are demonstrated. In addition, density functional theory calculations are performed to determine the optimal electronic structure via the electron density differences to verify the enhanced OER activity is related to the Co top site on the (110) surface. Moreover, the tandem bifunctional NiCo2S4 exhibit a required voltage of 1.58 V (J = 10 mA cm−2) for simultaneous OER and HER, and no obvious performance decay is observed after 72 h. When integrated with a GaAs solar cell, the resulting photoassisted water splitting electrolyzer shows a certified solar‐to‐hydrogen efficiency of up to 18.01%, further demonstrating the feasibility of engineering protocols and the promising potential of bifunctional NiCo2S4 for large‐scale overall water splitting.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9193d1ebe953b1547fd9411417747594a5049b93