The scalable production of inexpensive, efficient, and
robust catalysts
for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) that can deliver high current
densities at low potentials is critical for the industrial implementation
of water splitting technology. Herein, a series of metal oxides coupled
with Fe2O3 are in situ grown on iron foam massively
via an ultrafast combustion approach for a few seconds. Benefiting
from the three-dimensional nanosheet array framework and the heterojunction
structure, the self-supporting electrodes with abundant active centers
can regulate mass transport and electronic structure for prompting
OER activity at high current density. The optimized Ni(OH)2/Fe2O3 with robust structure can deliver a
high current density of 1000 mA cm–2 at the overpotential
as low as 271 mV in 1.0 M KOH for up to 1500 h. Theoretical calculation
demonstrates that the strong electronic modulation plays a crucial
part in the hybrid by optimizing the adsorption energy of the intermediate,
thereby enhancing the efficiency of oxygen evolution. This work proposes
a method to construct cheap and robust catalysts for practical application
in energy conversion and storage.