Low-temperature plasma-assisted synthesis of iron and nitrogen co-doped CoFeP-N nanowires for high-efficiency electrocatalytic water splitting

Designing efficient, stable, and low-cost non-precious metal electrocatalysts is critical for gainful utilization of renewable resources and effective water splitting. The catalytic efficiency is determined by interactions between the multiple main constituent elements and dopants. However, achieving performance-boosting synergistic interactions between different species in the catalyst is challenging. This work demonstrates such effect using low-temperature plasma-enhanced hydrothermal-phosphorization synthesis of Fe, N co-doped CoFeP-N nanowires. Nickel foam was utilized as the substrate to prepare CoFe-LDH precursor by hydrothermal method and CoFeP nanoparticles were obtained by phosphorization in a tube furnace. The N element was further doped into CoFeP using a low-temperature plasma discharge. The produced CoFeP-N nanowires exhibit far superior hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activities in an alkaline medium compared to the original CoP due to the incorporation of Fe and N elements, with overpotentials of 64 mV and 219 mV at 10 mA cm −2 respectively, and excellent cycling stability. When CoFeP-N is used as both the cathode and anode of a two-electrode water splitting device, low voltages of only 1.516 V and 1.636 V were needed to achieve current density of 10 mA cm −2 and100 mA cm −2 respectively, which are better than that of Pt/C||RuO 2 and most non-precious metal-based electrocatalysts reported to date. These experimental results provide new insights and strategies for developing efficient, stable, and low-cost bifunctional water splitting electrocatalysts.