The integration of conductive polymelamine and NiFe hydroxides to boost the electrochemical overall water splitting

The research for cheap, efficient, and stable electrochemical materials for overall water splitting has attracted great interest. The electrical conductivity is regarded as a significant indicator to electrochemical kinetics. As a nitrogen-containing conducting polymer, polymelamine (pMel) was, for the first time, introduced to facilitates the electronic transportation to promote the electrochemical activity of Ni-based hydroxide for water splitting. Moreover, the pMel participates the growth of dispersible 2D morphology for larger surface area, and modulates the bond strength of metal-oxygen for the generation of more oxygen vacancies, which lead to a dramatic improvement of OER and HER performance. The optimal electrode shows a voltage of 1.55 V for overall water electrolysis at 10 mA cm−2, and long-term stability for 170 h at 100 mA cm−2, better than the benchmark noble-metal based electrode couples.