Electrodeposition synthesis of Co-MnP/MnO@NiP/NF catalytic materials and investigation of their performance in hydrogen evolution reaction and urea oxidation reaction

In order to realize efficient hydrogen production with low energy consumption, the urea oxidation reaction (UOR) is the most practical alternative counter-reactions to the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in the overall electrochemical water splitting process. It’s highly desirable through the development of suitable cost-effective and non-precious catalysts, to design brilliant bifunctional electrocatalysts for the UOR and HER with both fast electron. Herein, the electrodeposition technique was used for synthesizing the hierarchical MnP/MnO@NiP on nickel foam (NF) and its electrocatalytic behavior was explored for HER and UOR. For delivering the 10 mA·cm −2 current density, the Co-MnP/MnO@NiP/NF electrode needed only 36.2 mV overpotential in HER and 1.24 V in UOR. During overall urea electrolysis, the cell voltage in 10 mA·cm −2 was only 1.52 V, which is 300 mV lower than the HER-OER process. The remarkable catalytic performance for HER and UOR can be attributed to the protective role of MnO x and the interfacial electron interactions within the material, which significantly boosted its overall activity, and the introduction of Co could enhance the electrochemical interface to obtain highly dispersed samples. The introduction of Ni could form a NiOOH with good catalytic activity intermediates with good catalytic activity to facilitate the UOR process.