Plasma-Assisted Synthesis of Self-Supporting Porous CoNPs@C Nanosheet as Efficient and Stable Bifunctional Electrocatalysts for Overall Water Splitting

The utilization of a highly active and robust bifunctional catalyst for simultaneously producing H2 and O2 is still a major challenging issue, which is vital for improving the efficiency of overall water splitting. Herein, we employ a novel plasma-assisted strategy to rapidly and conveniently synthesize the three-dimensional (3D) porous composite nanosheets assembled on monodispersed Co nanoparticles encapsulated in a carbon framework (CoNPs@C) on a carbon cloth. Such a novel 3D hierarchical porous nanosheet improves the exposure and accessibility of active sites as well as ensures high electroconductibility. Moreover, the coating of a few graphene layers on the surface of catalysts favors improvement of the catalytic activity. Benefited from these multiple merits, the CoNPs@C composite nanosheets enable a low overpotential of 153 mV at −10 mA cm–2 for hydrogen evolution reaction. Furthermore, they are also capable of catalyzing the oxygen evolution reaction with high efficiency to achieve current density of 10 mA cm–2 at the overpotential of 270 mV. Remarkably, when assembled as an alkaline water electrolyzer, the bifunctional CoNPs@C composite nanosheets can afford a water-splitting current density of 10 mA cm–2 at a cell voltage of 1.65 V.