The Interfacial Ni/Fe─O─Y Bonds Contribute to High-Efficiency Water Splitting

Developing economical and efficient electrocatalysts is critical for hydrogen energy industrialization through water electrolysis. Herein, a novel dual-site synergistic NiFe/Y₂O₃ hybrid with abundant interfacial Ni/Fe─O─Y bonds is designed by density functional theory (DFT) simulations. In situ Raman spectra combined with DFT calculations reveal that the interfacial Ni/Fe─O─Y units greatly promote H₂O dissociation and optimize the adsorption of both H* and oxygen species, achieving excellent activity and durability for hydrogen evolution reaction. As expected, NiFe/Y₂O₃ exhibits a low overpotential of 27 mV at 10 mA cm^-2 and robust stability of over 200 h at 1000 mA cm^-2, and also outstanding water splitting performance with a low cell voltage of 1.64 V at 100 mA cm^-2, showing significant potential for real-world applications.