Facile in-situ growth of Ni2P/Fe2P nanohybrids on Ni foam for highly efficient urea electrolysis

Urea electrolysis is regarded as an alternative energy-saving hydrogen production technique to replace the conventional water splitting method due to the predicted lower thermodynamic potential. Herein, we demonstrate a robust and mass-produced strategy to in-situ grow Ni2P/Fe2P nanohybrids on Ni foam (Ni2P/Fe2P/NF) as an advanced electrode for overall urea electrolysis via a 30 s manual shaking reaction of FeCl3 center dot 6H(2)O, K-3[Fe(CN)(6)] and pre-treated NF, followed by a facile phosphorization treatment. The as prepared Ni2P/Fe2P/NF electrode exhibits high activity for the HER at 115 mV and UOR at 1.36 V with the current density of 10 mA cm(-2), and only a cell voltage of 1.47 V is required to deliver the current density of 10 mA cm(-2). This work reveals a promising industrializable pathway to develop non-noble materials as bifunctional catalysts. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.