The construction of efficient and stable non-precious metal electrocatalysts for water hydrolysis and metal-air batteries is a key to tackle the energy shortage and environmental pollution. Herein, a composite consisting of needle-forest nickel cobalt oxide and nitrogen-doped carbon (NDC)-molybdenum carbide loaded on carbon cloth (NiCo2O4@NDC-Mo2C/CC) is synthesized from the hydrothermal method. The introduction of nitrogen-doped carbon and carbon cloth improves the electrical conductivity of the composite, the existence of NDC-Mo2C on CC makes NiCo2O4 produce generous oxygen vacancies. Therefore, NiCo2O4@NDC-Mo2C/CC shows the low overpotentials of HER (120 mV) and OER (220 mV) @10 mA cm-2 and excellent performances for overall water electrolysis in alkaline medium. Also, NiCo2O4@NDC-Mo2C/CC exhibits robust oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance and a large specific capacity of 778 mAh g−1 and energy density of 104 mW cm−2 as air cathode in Zn-air batteries. This work enriches knowledge to explore multifunctional electrocatalysts to replace noble metallic catalysts.
