Plasma-Assisted Synthesis of Self-Supporting Porous CoNPs@C Nanosheet as Efficient and Stable Bifunctional Electrocatalysts for Overall Water Splitting

The utilization of a highly active and robust bifunctional catalyst for simultaneously producing H₂ and O₂ is still a major challenging issue, which is vital for improving the efficiency of overall water splitting. Herein, we employ a novel plasma-assisted strategy to rapidly and conveniently synthesize the three-dimensional (3D) porous composite nanosheets assembled on monodispersed Co nanoparticles encapsulated in a carbon framework (CoNPs@C) on a carbon cloth. Such a novel 3D hierarchical porous nanosheet improves the exposure and accessibility of active sites as well as ensures high electroconductibility. Moreover, the coating of a few graphene layers on the surface of catalysts favors improvement of the catalytic activity. Benefited from these multiple merits, the CoNPs@C composite nanosheets enable a low overpotential of 153 mV at −10 mA cm^–2 for hydrogen evolution reaction. Furthermore, they are also capable of catalyzing the oxygen evolution reaction with high efficiency to achieve current density of 10 mA cm^–2 at the overpotential of 270 mV. Remarkably, when assembled as an alkaline water electrolyzer, the bifunctional CoNPs@C composite nanosheets can afford a water-splitting current density of 10 mA cm^–2 at a cell voltage of 1.65 V