N-doped hollow porous carbon spheres@Co Cu Fe alloy nanospheres as novel non-precious metal electrocatalysts for HER and OER

In this work, a string of different proportion trimetallic loaded the N-doped hollow porous carbon nanospheres (N-HPCS@Co Cu Fe NSs) were successfully crafted by a simple and economical method. Herein, the hollow-carbon structure was formed by etching carbon nanospheres. Moreover, owing to the presence of the PDA and P123, high dispersed nano spheres with mesopores were obtained. By this way, the catalyst can expose unique internal cavity and short transport path. Meanwhile, trimetal-based metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) Co Cu Fe alloy nano spheres (Co Cu Fe NSs) are first prepared. Creatively, PDA acts as the carbon resource, nitrogen resource and metal grafting agent simultaneously. Through a series of tests, N-HPCS@Co1 Cu1 Fe NSs has the best electrocatalytic performance and durable stability. This work highlights the current advances of hollow porous carbon structure, trimetallic active sites and N-doping, as well as, endow high electrocatalytic activity and durability for HER and OER.