Trace ruthenium promoted dual-reconstruction of CoFeP@C/NF for activating overall water splitting performance beyond precious-metals

At present, Ru dopants mainly enhance electrocatalytic performance by inducing strain, vacancy, local electron difference, and synergy. Surprisingly, this work innovatively proposes that trace Ru atoms induce dual-reconstruction of phosphide by regulating the electronic configuration and proportion of Co–P/Co–O species, and ultimately activate superb electrocatalytic performance. Specifically, Ru-CoFeP@C/nickel foam (NF) is reconstructed to generate hydrophilic Co(OH)₂ nanosheets during the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) process, further accelerating the alkaline HER kinetics of phosphide. And the as-formed CoOOH during the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) process directly accelerates the oxygen overflow efficiency. As expected, the overpotential at 100 mA·cm⁻² (η₁₀₀) values of the reconstructed Ru-CoFeP@C/NF are 0.104 and 0.257 V for HER and OER, which are greatly lower than that of Pt/C-NF and RuO₂-NF benchmarks, respectively. This work provides guidance for the construction of high-performance catalysts for HER and OER dual reconstruction. This work provides a new idea for the optimization of catalyst structure and electrocatalytic performance.