Low Rh doping accelerated HER/OER bifunctional catalytic activities of nanoflower-like Ni-Co sulfide for greatly boosting overall water splitting

Facile synthesis of high-efficiency and stable bifunctional electrocatalyst is essential for producing clean hydrogen in energy storage systems. Herein, low Rh-doped flower-like Ni₃S₂/Co₃S₄ heterostructures were facilely prepared on porous nickel foam (labeled Rh-Ni₃S₂/Co₃S₄/NF) by a hydrothermal method. The correlation of the precursors types with the morphological structures and catalytic properties were rigorously investigated for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in the control groups. The low Rh doping within the catalyst played important role in boosting the catalytic characteristics. The resulting catalyst showed the smaller overpotentials of 197 and 78 mV to drive a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 for the OER and HER in alkaline electrolyte, respectively. And the potential only required 1.71 V to drive a current density of 100 mA cm^-2 in a water splitting device. It reflects excellent overall water splitting of the home-made Rh-Ni₃S₂/Co₃S₄/NF. This strategy shed some constructive light for preparing transition metal sulfide-based electrocatalysts in water splitting devices.