Nanostructured amorphous and nanocrystalline NiFeP composites for highly efficient oxygen evolution reaction

Electrocatalytic water splitting is a promising method for producing green hydrogen, but hinder by sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) process. It is urgent to develop highly efficient OER electrodes. Amorphous alloys are novel promising catalysts for various fields, especially amorphous alloys composites with nanocrystals exhibit superior performances in HER and OER. However, the effect of the proportion of amorphous structure versus nanocrystals on catalytic performances remain unknown. Herein, a batch of non-precious metal NiFeP composites composed by dual phase of nanostructured metallic glass and nanocrystal with various proportions were fabricated by electrodeposition facilely. Experimentally, an ultra-low OER overpotential of 248 mV at current density of 50 mA/cm² was achieved for NiFeP-1.4 V. This work not only provides an excellent catalyst, but also a novel method to produce amorphous-nanocrystalline composites with superior catalytic performance.