Enhancement of urea oxidation reaction in alkaline condition via heterointerface engineering

•Heterostructure electrocatalyst having abundant heterointerfaces.•Exhibiting superior UOR activity and stability.•Heterointerfaces promoted NiOOH formation, serving as the UOR active species.•Simple, ultrafast, energy-saving one-step synthesis via corrosion engineering.•Experimental data supported by density functional theory calculation. Water electrolysis involving low energy barrier anodic urea oxidation reaction (UOR) is a promising way for hydrogen production. In this study, we present a superior heterostructured UOR electrocatalyst of (NiFeCo)Sx/FeOOH/NiFeCo(OH)x supported on conductive Ni foam prepared using a simple, ultrafast, energy-saving single-step corrosion engineering method. Leveraging the high conductivity of the (NiFeCo)Sx, plentiful Fe3+ in the amorphous FeOOH, high catalytic activity of the NiFeCo(OH)x, and abundant heterointerfaces, the resulting (NiFeCo)Sx/FeOOH/NiFeCo(OH)x electrode exhibits remarkable electrocatalytic performance toward UOR under alkaline condition. The electrocatalyst shows an ultra-low potential of 1.36 V at 100 mA cm−2, a small Tafel slope of 24.8 mV dec–1, and excellent stability. Density functional theory calculation shows that the multiple heterointerfaces provide synergistic effect of shifting the d-band center to optimize the intermediate chemisorption energy, thus boosting the catalytic kinetics for catalyzing UOR.