Engineering iron phosphide-on-plasmonic Ag/Au-nanoshells as an efficient cathode catalyst in water splitting for hydrogen production

Highlights: • Plasmonic hybrid electrocatalysts with enhanced HER are successfully fabricated. • Intriguing performance is due to the synergistic effects and plasmonic enhancement. • Promoted HER performance and satisfactory stability are demonstrated. Constructing highly active electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) have drawn considerable attention recently. However, how to design nanostructured electrocatalysts with enhanced catalytic performances is still a challenge. Herein, plasmonic Ag/Au hollow porous nanoshells decorated with porous Fe₂P thin layers (denoted as Ag/Au-HPNSs@PFP) are fabricated, in which porous Fe₂P (PFP) thin layers are derived from pyrolysis and phosphidation of MIL-100(Fe) coated on plasmonic Ag/Au hollow porous nanoshells (Ag/Au-HPNSs) and the high porosity of the HER-active Fe₂P, along with plasmonic enhancement of the Ag/Au hollow porous nanoshells, facilitates hydrogen evolution and electron transport, and accordingly boosts the electrocatalytic HER performance. When applied as a HER electrode, the hybrid electrocatalyst displays an onset overpotential of only 108 mV, satisfactory stability, and enhanced performance for hydrogen evolution under visible light, ascribing to electron interactions between Fe and P and synergistic effects of porous Fe₂P and plasmonic Au/Ag hollow porous nanoshells.