posted on 2019-10-09, 16:43authored byJinhui Tong, Yuliang Li, Lili Bo, Wenyan Li, Tao Li, Qi Zhang, Deyuan Kong, Huan Wang, Chunyan Li
In
this work, a series of hybrids of CoP/N-doped carbon hollow
spheres anchored on core–shell N-doped carbon nanofibers were
facilely fabricated by the electrospinning technique followed by pyrolysis
and phosphorization. The as-prepared hybrids exhibited greatly enhanced
bifunctional electrocatalytic activities for the hydrogen evolution
reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) compared to either
moiety of CoP/N-doped carbon hollow spheres and core–shell
N-doped carbon nanofibers. Especially, the optimum CoP/NCF-200 hybrid
exhibited high performances and stabilities for OER in alkaline conditions
and for HER in both acidic and alkaline electrolytes. The catalyst
also exhibited excellent performance for overall water splitting as
both anodic and cathodic catalysts in alkaline media. The density
functional theory calculations suggest that the synergy between CoP
and N dopants leads to higher catalytic activities for HER and OER
and the C atoms between N atoms in the carbon layer are the catalytically
active sites for the HER.