Improving the performance of water splitting electrodes by composite plating with nano-SiO2

The electrochemical splitting of water requires efficient functional electrodes. Herein, we report the fabrication of electrocatalyst consisted of an electrodeposited NiFeP alloy film which was composite plated with nano-SiO2 on nickel foam. The structure and morphology of the film were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results showed that the surface area of this NiFeP-SiO2 co-deposition alloy film can be significantly increased after electrochemical etching in a KOH solution. The water splitting properties of the alloy film were evaluated using electrochemistry. By using the NiFeP-SiO2/NF(Etched) as a bifunctional electrode, total water splitting has been demonstrated in a two-electrode cell with a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at an applied voltage of 1.57 V, which exhibited enhanced water splitting activity in comparison to the analogue cell using the pristine NiFeP/NF electrode.