Synthesis of phosphide on etched nickel foam as bifunctional electrocatalyst for urea-water electrolysis

In this paper, firstly, nickel foam (NF) was etched in HF at different conditions. Then, Ni2P was synthesized on the etched NF (Ni2P/NF). The results indicate the concentration of HF, temperature, and etching time could affect the performance of NF, while the Ni2P synthesized on the best NF has better catalytic performance and can be used as a bifunctional catalyst for both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and urea oxidation reaction (UOR). For the anodic UOR, it can reach 1.42 V at 100 mA.cm(-2). While for the cathodic HER, the overpotential is 299 mV at 100 mA.cm(-2). Thus, that nickel phosphate on etched NF has good catalytic performance and can be used as a new catalyst for the electrolytic water-urea system.