Iron, Tungsten Dual-Doped Nickel Sulfide as Efficient Bifunctional Catalyst for Overall Water Splitting

Developing low-cost and highly efficient bifunctional catalysts for both the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a challenging problem in electrochemical overall water splitting. Here, iron, tungsten dual-doped nickel sulfide catalyst (Fe/W-Ni₃S₂) is synthesized on the nickel foam, and it exhibits excellent OER and HER performance. As a result, the water electrolyze based on Fe/W-Ni₃S₂ bifunctional catalyst illustrates 10 mA cm^-2 at 1.69 V (without iR-compensation) and highly durable overall water splitting over 100 h tested under 500 mA cm^-2. Experimental results and DFT calculations indicate that the synergistic interaction between Fe doping and Ni vacancy induced by W leaching during the in situ oxidation process can maximize exposed OER active sites on the reconstructed NiOOH species for accelerating OER kinetics, while the Fe/W dual-doping optimizes the electronic structure of Fe/W-Ni₃S₂ and the binding strength of intermediates for boosting HER. This study unlocks the different promoting mechanisms of incorporating Fe and W for boosting the OER and HER activity of Ni₃S₂ for water splitting, which provides significant guidance for designing high-performance bifunctional catalysts for overall water splitting.