Heterogeneous Bimetallic Phosphide/Sulfide Nanocomposite for Efficient Solar-Energy-Driven Overall Water Splitting

Solar-driven overall water splitting is highly desirable for hydrogen generation with sustainable energy sources, which need efficient, earth-abundant, robust, and bifunctional electrocatalysts for both oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we propose a heterogeneous bimetallic phosphide/sulfide nanocomposite electrocatalyst of NiFeSP on nickel foam (NiFeSP/NF), which shows superior electrocatalytic activity of low overpotentials of 91 mV at −10 mA cm–2 for HER and of 240 mV at 50 mA cm–2 for OER in 1 M KOH solution. In addition, the NiFeSP/NF presents excellent overall water splitting performance with a cell voltage as low as 1.58 V at a current density of 10 mA cm–2. Combining with a photovoltaic device of a Si solar cell or integrating into photoelectrochemical (PEC) systems, the bifunctional NiFeSP/NF electrocatalyst implements unassisted solar-driven water splitting with a solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of ∼9.2% and significantly enhanced PEC performance, respectively.