Development of Binder-Free Three-Dimensional Honeycomb-like Porous Ternary Layered Double Hydroxide-Embedded MXene Sheets for Bi-Functional Overall Water Splitting Reactions

Abstract

In this study, a honeycomb-like porous-structured nickel-iron-cobalt layered double hydroxide/Ti3C2Tx (NiFeCo-LDH@MXene) composite was successfully fabricated on a three-dimensional nickel foam using a simple hydrothermal approach. Owing to their distinguishable characteristics, the fabricated honeycomb porous-structured NiFeCo-LDH@MXene composites exhibited outstanding bifunctional electrocatalytic activity for pair hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions in alkaline medium. The developed NiFeCo-LDH@MXene electrocatalyst required low overpotentials of 130 and 34 mV to attain a current density of 10 mA cm(-2) for OER and HER, respectively. Furthermore, an assembled NiFeCo-LDH@MXene||NiFeCo-LDH@MXene device exhibited a cell voltage of 1.41 V for overall water splitting with a robust firmness for over 24 h to reach 10 mA cm(-2) current density, signifying outstanding performance for water splitting reactions. These results demonstrated the promising potential of the designed 3D porous NiFeCo-LDH@MXene sheets as outstanding candidates to replace future green energy conversion devices.