LAUSR

Abstract Developing earth-abundant and high-efficient catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) to enhance the efficiency of water splitting is highly desirable. Metal-doping and construction of heterogeneous structure are two start-of-the-art strategies to increase the OER activity of transition metal materials. In this work, we exhibit the design and construction of a unique coral-like 3D hierarchical Mn-doped Ni2P–Ni5P4/NF (Mn–Ni–P/NF) OER catalyst. The Mn-doped Ni2P–Ni5P4/NF hybrid catalyst is synthesized on Ni foam by hydrothermal and followed in situ phosphidation, which exhibits superior OER catalytic performance with an overpotential of 230 mV (vs. RHE) at a current density of 10 mA/cm2 and 70 mV lower than Ni2P–Ni5P4/NF (300 mV). Furthermore, it also exhibits good long-term stability for 20 h. This work provides a good thought named metal-doping transition metal phosphide complexes to improve the catalytic activity for OER. Such a superior OER performance is main attributed to the unique morphology, the doping of metal Mn regulating the metal phosphide Ni2P–Ni5P4 nanosheet structure to be a 3D rough high-active-sites nanorod structure with the in situ formed oxidized Ni species on the surface and effective composite nanostructures.