Nitrogen-doped FeO/NiTe as an excellent bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting.

The development of inexpensive, high efficiency electrocatalysts is a major challenge for electrolytic water to hydrogen production. Herein, an efficient porous nanoblock catalyst N-doped FeO/NiTe heterojunction for overall water splitting is reported. Notably, the obtained 3D self-supported catalysts exhibit good hydrogen evolution. reaction (HER) activity and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) properties in alkaline solution (only 70 mV and 253 mV of overpotential are needed to provide 10 mA cm current density, respectively). This is mainly due to the N-doped electronic structure optimized, the strong electronic interaction between FeO and NiTe that facilitates rapid electron transfer, the porous structure which allows the catalyst to have large surface area for effective gas release, and their synergistic effect. When used as a dual function catalyst with overall water splitting, it achieved a current density of 10 mA cm under 1.54 V with good durability (at least 42 h). The present work provides a new methodology for the study of high-performance, low-cost, and corrosion-resistant bifunctional electrocatalysts.