Chemical etching induced microporous nickel backbones decorated with metallic Fe@hydroxide nanocatalysts: an efficient and sustainable OER anode toward industrial alkaline water-splitting

Abstract

An efficient and sustainable gas diffusible OER anode toward industrial alkaline water-splitting is fabricated by simply immersing Ni foam in ethanolic FeCl3 etchant, which produces a microporous Ni backbone decorated with nanocatalysts.

Bimetallic Cu/Fe MOF-Based Nanosheet Film via Binder-Free Drop-Casting Route: A Highly Efficient Urea-Electrolysis Catalyst

“…In addition, the combustion of hydrogen releases only water as a by-product, and is, therefore, eco-friendly [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Among the several hydrogen production techniques, the electrochemical water-splitting process is the emission-free green route for generating hydrogen with high purity [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ]. Unfortunately, the efficiency of hydrogen production is severely hindered due to the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction process (OER) at the anode [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ].…”

“…On the other hand, despite the demonstration of good electrocatalytic activity for OER and UOR by the state-of-the-art RuO 2 and IrO 2 electrocatalysts, their commercial implementation is limited by the high cost and scarcity of these noble metal-based compounds [ 36 ]. Recently, various transition metal-based materials, such as sulfides [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ], oxides [ 10 , 41 , 42 ], selenides [ 43 , 44 , 45 ] and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) [ 11 , 46 ] have been investigated with noteworthy catalytic performance for UOR. However, they hardly fulfill the requirement for practical implementation due to their high overpotential and low current densities [ 23 , 26 ].…”

3D Hierarchical Porous Fe/Ni‐P‐B as Practical Bifunctional Electrode for Alkaline Water Electrolysis

“…performance. [15] Moreover, the close contact of this 1 μm thick porous layer with the inner layer is clearly observed by the local cross-section image of the single wire (Figure 1i). As a result, a 3D hierarchical porous structure was obtained containing welldefined macropores at the inter-wire space and mesopores distributed uniformly over the entire catalyst.…”

“…An apparent oxidation peak is observed at around 1.35 V vs. RHE for these electrodes. This oxidation peak is attributed to the electrochemical oxidation of (Ni/Fe)‐OH phase to the catalytically favorable OER active (Ni/Fe)‐OOH phase, indicating the process of beneficial electrochemical transformation of these electrodes under electrochemical operating conditions [15] . It is further noticed that Fe/Ni‐P‐B@MS has the biggest electrochemical oxidation peak, which may be the result of large surface area and the introduction of Fe in the catalyst that can be electrochemically oxidized [14] .…”

“…Moreover, the amount of the mesopores in the electrode also increased apparently after surface reconstruction (Figure S6 inset). Therefore, the FeCl 3 ‐NaCl etching enables larger surface area and more mesopores for Fe/Ni‐P‐B@MS electrode as compared with Ni‐P‐B@MS, which will benefit the distribution of the active sites and facilitates the transportation of gas bubbles and consequently leads to better electrochemical performance [15] . Moreover, the close contact of this 1 μm thick porous layer with the inner layer is clearly observed by the local cross‐section image of the single wire (Figure 1i).…”