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Developing highly active and stable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts for water electrolysis remains a great challenge. A self-supported Ir nanocatalyst was prepared via a self-assembly method. Its porous structure and residual metal incorporation contributed to its high activity and stability for the OER in acid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• NiCoP/CC with high catalytic performance was successfully synthesized via a one-step method. • The electrodeposition and phosphating reactions were carried out simultaneously. • Amorphous phosphates were constructed to obtain more active sites for exposure. • The synergistic effect between Ni and Co bimetals leads to high catalytic activity. Exploring a simple, low-cost preparation method to synthesize excellent catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline solution is highly meaningful for large-scale electrolysis of water for hydrogen production. Herein, a one-step electrodeposition method with simultaneous electrodeposition and phosphation was proposed to synthesize the three-dimensional NiCoP/carbon cloth (NiCoP/CC) nanoparticles at room temperature on the conductive carbon cloth (CC). The results showed that the NiCoP nanoparticles covered by nanowires had an amorphous structure. The NiCoP/CC electrode exhibited a good catalytic activity in 1.0 M KOH solution. It required only 74, 101, 149 mV overpotential for HER in basic solution to obtain current densities of − 10, − 20, − 50 mA cm−2, respectively, with a corresponding Tafel slope of 89.5 mV dec−1. Furthermore, after 24 h constant voltage test, the current density of NiCoP/CC only showed 2% decay, indicating a good stability. The obtained excellent catalytic activity can be attributed to the amorphous structure, the synergetic effect of Ni and Co, the charge transfer among Ni/Co and P, and nanoparticles in situ grown on carbon cloth. The simple one-step electrodeposition method shows a very promising potential for the preparation of bimetallic phosphides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]