Effect of sulfidation and phosphidation on Fe doped Co LDH/nickel foam for efficient multifunctional water splitting electrodes, urea oxidation reaction, and seawater splitting: An experimental and computational study

• Published in: International journal of hydrogen energy 2024-10, Vol.85, p.733-743
• Main Authors: Sepahdar, M.H., Masoudpanah, S.M., Bafghi, M. Sh, Mehri, M., Aslibeiki, B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: CoFeP; CoFeS; DFT; HER; OER
• ISSN: 0360-3199
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2024.08.379

In this work, the binder-free Fe-doped cobalt LDH/nickel foam (CoFe LDH/NF) electrode was prepared using the hydrothermal method. To achieve higher electrocatalyst activity of CoFe LDH/NF, sulfurization was conducted using the hydrothermal method, while the phosphidation was performed through a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique. The CoFeS/NF and CoFeP/NF electrodes exhibited significantly higher electrocatalytic activity than CoFe LDH/NF electrode. The CoFeP/NF electrode with a specific surface area of 6.8 m2 g−1 had lower overpotentials of 120 and 236 mV for hydrogen (HER) and oxygen (OER) evolution reactions, respectively. Additionally, the CoFeP/NF electrode exhibited a low potential of 1.32 V vs. RHE at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 for urea oxidation reaction (UOR). The CoFeP/NF electrode demonstrated low overpotentials of 224 and 273 mV in a seawater solution for HER and OER, respectively. The density functional theory (DFT) calculations confirmed the experimental results in which the CoFeP/NF material had promising electrocatalytic activity for renewable energy applications. •CoFe LDH/nickel foam electrode was sulfurized and phosphorized for water splitting.•Sheet-like morphology of CoFeP and CoFeS materials was similar to CoFe LDH.•CoFeP/NF showed higher water splitting performance than the CoFeS/NF electrode.