Amorphous Nickel Hydroxide Shell on Ni<sub>8</sub>P<sub>3</sub> Nanorods for Boosted Highly Stable Overall Water Splitting at High Current
Minmin Wang, Li Zhou, Zukun Li, Hao Xu, Yanfeng Tang
Abstract
Developing highly active, highly stable, and cheap electrocatalysts for water splitting is of great significance for hydrogen production. Herein, we report an amorphous Ni(OH) 2 -clothed transition Ni 8 P 3 catalyst, in which the amorphous Ni(OH) 2 shell provides catalytic active sites and serves as a proton conductive encapsulation layer to ensure efficient proton supply to the active Ni 8 P 3 sites. As expected, the Ni 8 P 3 @Ni(OH) 2 catalyst exhibits significant water decomposition performance at low and high current densities of 10, 100, and 1000 mA cm –2 at 1.45, 1.71, and 2.21 V, respectively, which is comparable to those of commercial electrocatalysts. In particular, the prepared Ni 8 P 3 @Ni(OH) 2 electrodes possess exceptional long-term durability (200 h) at high current (over 1 A). The significantly improved water-splitting activity and durability in alkaline medium are expected to make them attractive catalyst materials to produce renewable chemical fuels.