The development of efficient electrocatalysts for the water splitting process and understanding their fundamental catalytic mechanisms are highly essential to achieving high performance in energy conversion technologies. Herein, we have synthesised spinel nickel ferrite nanofibers (NiFe₂O₄-NFs) via an electrospinning (ES) method followed by a carbonization process. The resultant fiber was subjected to electrocatalytic water splitting reactions in alkaline medium. The catalytic efficiency of the NiFe₂O₄-NFs in OER was highly satisfactory. But it is not high enough to catalyse the HER process. Hence, palladium ions were decorated as nanosheets on NiFe₂O₄-NFs as a heterostructure to improve the catalytic efficiency for HER. Density functional theory (DFT) confirms that the addition of palladium to NiFe₂O₄-NFs helps to reduce the effect of catalyst poisoning and improve the efficiency of the catalyst. In an alkaline hybrid electrolyser, the required cell voltage was observed as 1.51 V at a fixed current density of 10 mA cm⁻².

中文翻译：

---

构建以钯离子修饰的电纺尖晶石NiFe2O4纳米纤维作为纳米片异质结构：提高HER在碱性水电解中的电催化活性

开发用于水分解过程的高效电催化剂并了解其基本催化机制对于实现能量转换技术的高性能至关重要。在此，我们通过静电纺丝 (ES) 方法和随后的碳化工艺合成了尖晶石镍铁氧体纳米纤维 (NiFe ₂ O ₄ -NFs) 。所得纤维在碱性介质中进行电催化水分解反应。_{NiFe 2} O ₄ -NFs在OER中的催化效率非常令人满意。但它还不足以催化 HER 过程。因此，钯离子被装饰成NiFe ₂ O _{4上的纳米片}-NFs 作为异质结构提高 HER 的催化效率。密度泛函理论（DFT）证实，在NiFe ₂ O ₄ -NFs中添加钯有助于降低催化剂中毒的影响，提高催化剂的效率。在碱性混合电解槽中，在 10 mA cm ^-2的固定电流密度下，观察到所需的电池电压为 1.51 V。