ABSTRACT Electrochemical overall water splitting is one of the main choices to realize hydrogen energy. In this study, a simple strategy of self‐growth of carbon nanotubes with the tip end of Co nanoparticles compound Fe‐Nx/mesoporous carbon as bi‐functional electrocatalyst is proposed. At high temperature, cobalt nanoparticles catalyze the self‐growth of nitrogen‐doped carbon nanotubes with a tip of cobalt particles from a metal‐organic framework ZIF‐8. FeTAPc as Fe and N resource is further adsorbed on the shell and then re‐carbonized under 900°C to fix Fe‐Nx on the polyhedron carbon shell to form bi‐functional electrocatalyst (Fe‐Nx/Co‐NC‐900). Fe‐Nx/Co‐NC‐900 showed good OER (330 mV) and HER (239 mV) overpotential. As a result, the porous structure of Fe‐Nx/Co‐NC‐900 and the interconnected three‐dimensional carbon network promote the material transport. The self‐growing carbon nanotubes improve the conductivity of the electrocatalyst and avoid aggregation. The high dispersion of two kinds of metal atoms and the mixed growth of metal nanoparticles co‐endowed Fe‐Nx/Co‐NC‐900 electrocatalyst with rich activity. In addition, Fe‐Nx/Co‐NC‐900 has been used to assemble an electrochemical overall water splitting with a driving voltage of 1.67 V, which shows its practical application in electrochemical overall water splitting. This study provides enlightenment in application of hydrogen energy production.
Wang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.