Bifunctional catalyst, as a feasible way to produce hydrogen, has been regarded as an effective issue for mitigation of the greenhouse effect, and thus has attracted extensive attention. Inspired by the traditional electrodeposition technology, we report a fast self-etching electrodeposition method to construct copper-incorporated three-dimensional Ni-Cu coated on copper sheets as a superior bifunctional catalyst. During the electrodeposition process, the copper substrate was corroded to form ammonium copper ions by ingenious design of the concentration of electrolyte, including ammonium chloride and sodium chloride. Meanwhile, we observe that the ratio of Ni to Cu could be changed via varying the current density. The optimized hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) overpotentials are 76 mV and 290 mV at 10 mA cm⁻², respectively, which outperform the most reported bifunctional electrocatalysts until now. The calculation further demonstrates that the theoretical hydrogen desorption energy and OER overpotential of Ni-Cu are better than those of pure Ni and Cu. The prepared Ni-Cu electrocatalyst exhibits remarkable stability, especially in the HER reaction process stability test up to 50 h. The successful preparation of Ni-Cu electrocatalyst provides more possibility in the traditional electrodeposition synthesis of high performance electrocatalysts.

作为产生氢的可行方法，双功能催化剂被认为是减轻温室效应的有效问题，因此引起了广泛的关注。受传统电沉积技术的启发，我们报告了一种快速的自蚀刻电沉积方法，可将覆铜的三维Ni-Cu覆铜铜板构造成一种出色的双功能催化剂。在电沉积过程中，通过巧妙设计电解质的浓度（包括氯化铵和氯化钠），腐蚀了铜基板，形成了铵铜离子。同时，我们观察到镍与铜的比例可以通过改变电流密度来改变。在10 mA厘米时，优化的析氢反应（HER）和析氧反应（OER）超电势分别为76 mV和290 mV^-2，其性能优于迄今为止报道最多的双功能电催化剂。计算结果进一步表明，Ni-Cu的理论氢解吸能和OER超电势优于纯Ni和Cu。制备的Ni-Cu电催化剂表现出显着的稳定性，特别是在HER反应过程中长达50小时的稳定性测试中。Ni-Cu电催化剂的成功制备为高性能电催化剂的传统电沉积合成提供了更多可能性。