Trimetallic CoFeCr-LDH@MoS2 as a highly efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Developing active and efficient non-noble metal catalysts for overall splitting water is one of the most urgent problems to promote hydrogen production industry. In this paper, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) was successfully intercalated between the layers of LDH by hydrothermal and co-precipitation method, which combined the electrical conductivity and electrocatalytic properties of the two materials. The overpotential of the synthesized CoFeCr-LDH-621 @MoS2 is only 230 mV/260 mV for OER/HER at the current density of 10 mA cm-2, and the Tafel slope is 40 mV decades-1/49 mV decades-1. In the stability test of HER and OER, the material can still maintain high-efficiency electrocatalytic activity after scanning 500 cycles of linear voltammetry curve. Overall water splitting performance was tested after smearing CoFeCr-LDH-621 @MoS2 on the treated Ni foam. It requires only a cell voltage of 1.56 V to reach the current density of 10 mA cm−2. The opened LDH structure expose more active sites, and the synergistic effect of MoS2 and LDH enhances the electrical conductivity of the material. Therefore, this work proposes an efficient electrocatalyst for overall water splitting.