Dandelion-like VSe-embellished CuSe-CoSe hollow nanotube clusters as bifunctional catalysts for high-performance alkaline hydrogen evolution and solar cells.

Among the various non-precious metal catalysts that drive hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs) and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), transition metal selenides (TMSs) stand out due to their unique electronic properties and tunable morphology. Herein, the multicomponent selenide CuSe-CoSe@VSe was successfully synthesized by doping with metal element vanadium and selenization on the copper-cobalt carbonate hydroxide (CuCo-CH) template. CuSe-CoSe@VSe exhibited the dandelion-like cluster structure composed of hollow nanotubes doped with VSe nanoparticles. Due to the unique structure and the synergistic effect of various elements, CuSe-CoSe@VSe showed excellent alkaline HER and DSSC performances. The DSSC based on CuSe-CoSe@VSe exhibited an impressive power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.64 %, which was much higher than that of Pt (8.39 %). Besides, it possessed a low HER overpotential of 76 mV@10 mA cm and a small Tafel slope of 88.9 mV dec in 1.0 M KOH.