MOFs-derived porous carbon/NiFeP hierarchical flower-like nanoarchitectures for efficient overall water splitting

Transition-metal phosphides have great potential in electrocatalytic water splitting; however, their inferior charge-transfer capacity and poor stability largely limit their practical application. Herein, metal-organic frameworks template-derived porous carbon/NiFeP nanosheets (denoted as C/NiFeP NSs) that interconnect into open hierarchical flower-like nanoarchitectures, are synthesized through a hydrothermal method and subsequent phosphorization at low temperature. The carbon frameworks derived from the pyrolysis of terephthalic acid not only enhance the electrical conductivity but also provide the robust flexible skeleton for anchoring NiFeP to form heterojunction, thus improving the charge transfer capacity and stability. Merited by the cooperative effect of carbon, interface, porous nature, and synergistic effect of Ni and Fe, the obtained nanostructure possesses superior the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction performance. Importantly, an alkaline electrolysis cell assembled with C/NiFeP NSs as both cathode and anode could reach 10 mA cm(-2) at a low voltage of 1.54 V, which is lower than most of the values currently achievable for non-precious metal electrocatalysts. Moreover, this cell also exhibits stable operation for 20 h. The present work provides a facile and controllable synthesis strategy to obtain high-activity bifunctional catalysts as promising alternatives for cost-effective water electrolysis.