Facile Synthesis of Fe-Doped Ni3S2 Nanoparticles Supported on Ni Foam as Highly Active Electrocatalyst for Water Splitting

Abstract

Novel Fe-doped Ni3S2 nanoparticles have been synthesized in situ on Ni foam (NF) through a facile one-step hydrothermal method. The structure and composition of the as-synthesized samples were characterized by XRD, XPS and SEM technique. The Fe-Ni3S2/NF shows excellent electrocatalytic activity toward both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Moreover, assembled as an electrolyzer for overall water splitting, this material delivers a current density of 10 mA cm-2 at a quite low cell voltage of 1.59 V, and it also shows remarkable stability for continuously working over 24 h with nearly negligible deactivation. We expect that the Fe-doping can be an effective way to enhance the catalytic performance of metal disulfides for overall water splitting.