The P/NiFe doped NiMoO4 micro-pillars arrays for highly active and durable hydrogen/oxygen evolution reaction towards overall water splitting

Water splitting is an efficient strategy to produce purity hydrogen and convert intermittent electricity from renewable wind and solar sources. In this work, dense NiMoO4 micro-pillars arrays (MPAs) were in-situ grown on nickel foam (NF) through facile hydrothermal method, then the NiMoO4/NF were converted into NiMoO4–P/NF and NiFe/NiMoO4/NF via phosphating and electrodeposition method, respectively. The NiMoO4–P/NF electrode required small overpotentials of 34 mV@10 mA cm−2 and 130 mV@100 mA cm−2 for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The NiFe/NiMoO4/NF electrode exhibited excellent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity with overpotentials of 210 mV@10 mA cm−2 and 300 mV@100 mA cm−2. The overall water splitting using the anode-cathode couple of NiFe/NiMoO4/NF||NiMoO4–P/NF only consumes low voltages of 1.47 V@10 mA cm−2 for 100 h and 1.66 V@100 mA cm−2 for 50 h in 1 M KOH. The electronic modification and the well-designed hierarchical structure contribute the high energy-efficient and stabile overall water splitting.