Facile fabrication of activated NiFe bimetallic NPs anchored N-doped CNTs arrays as reliable self-standing electrocatalyst for HER and OER

Abstract Hydrogen generation by water splitting in alkaline solution is a key candidate to product sustainable alternative energy in the 21st century. In this article, we fabricated the self-standing N-doped carbon nanotubes (CNTs) array encapsulated NiFe alloy nanoparticles (NPs) via facile solid-diffusion method as effective hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts (NiFe/CNTs composites). As-prepared NiFe/CNTs-900 exhibited great electrocatalysis activity, with overpotentials of 149 mV for HER and 257 mV for OER to drive current density of 10 mA/cm2, and also displayed superior electrochemical stability, which are mainly due to the synergistic effect between the bimetallic transition metals and N-doped carbon and the large number of active sites generated during the products preparation process.