Electrocatalytic evolution of oxygen and hydrogen by nitrogen doped helical chiral carbon nanotubes loaded with highly dispersed porous Ni-Fe alloys

In this work, we prepared a nitrogen-doped right-chiral carbon nanotubes @ porous Ni-Fe alloy nanoparticles (N-D-HCNT@pNi-Fe NPs). In the preparation process, a chiral amino acid chain (C-18-D-Glu) was used as the template, in which pyrrole was polymerized as carbon and nitrogen source. According to the connection between pyrrole and transition metal ions, the transition metal ions were loaded onto C-18-D-Glu. After one step of high temperature calcination process, nitrogen doping, removal of pore-forming agent, reduction of transition metal nanoparticles and synthesis of chiral carbon nanotubes were completed in one step. Combined with the chiral structure of chiral carbon nanotubes, the high electrocatalytic performance of metal alloy nanoparticles and the high specific surface area formed by the porous structure, the composite obtained high electrocatalytic performance in oxygen evolution (OER) and hydrogen evolution reactions (HER). This study provides a new idea for the application of chiral carbon nanotubes in the field of electrocatalytic energy and a new method for the preparation of composite materials based on chiral carbon nanotubes.