Anion-cation dual doping: an effective electronic modulation strategy of Ni2P for high-performance oxygen evolution

Abstract Developing of high-performance and low-cost electrocatalysts is of great significance to reduce the overpotential and accelerated the reaction rate of oxygen evolution in water splitting and related energy conversion applications. Herein, Fe, O-dual doped Ni2P (Fe, O-Ni2P) nanoarray is successfully synthesized on carbon cloth demonstrating enhanced electrocatalytic activity and stability for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) under alkaline media. The as-synthesized Fe, O-Ni2P nanoarray exhibits obviously improved OER performance with a low overpotential of 210 mV at 10 mA cm−2 current density and a Tafel slope of 48 mV dec−1, as well as long-term durability. The strong coupling interaction induced changes in electronic structure lead to relatively higher oxidation state and stronger oxidation ability of the Fe, O-Ni2P nanoarray, together with the high electrochemical surface area and good conductivity contribute to the superior OER performance. This work highlights the anion-cation dual doping strategy may be an effective method for fabrication of catalysts relating to energy conversion applications.