Rapid Fabrication of Ni/NiO@CoFe Layered Double Hydroxide Hierarchical Nanostructures by Femtosecond Laser Ablation and Electrodeposition for Efficient Overall Water Splitting

Abstract

The development of simple and effective methods for the rapid preparation of electrocatalysts for overall water splitting from earth‐abundant elements is an important and challenging task. A facile and ultrafast two‐step method was developed to prepare a Ni/NiO@CoFe layered double hydroxide hierarchical nanostructure (NCF) within a few minutes by femtosecond laser ablation and electrodeposition. In 1 m KOH solution, the optimized NCF catalysts show a low overpotential of 230 mV for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 with a low Tafel slope of 34.3 mV dec−1, indicating fast and efficient OER kinetics. Owing to the synergistic effect between NiO and CoFe layered double hydroxide, the hydrogen evolution reaction performance of the NCF was also improved. The synthesized electrocatalysts were further utilized in overall water splitting with a potential of only 1.56 V at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and excellent durability, better than that of the commercial RuO2(+)//Pt/C(−) system. The present work provides new insights on the rapid and facile preparation of efficient electrocatalysts for overall water splitting on a large scale.

Hybrids of PtRu Nanoclusters and Black Phosphorus Nanosheets for Highly Efficient Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

“…1,2 Water electrolysis provides a promising method to produce high-purity hydrogen gas in a practical and affordable manner, which requires active and stable electrocatalysts. [3][4][5] As known, the electrolysis of water in alkaline solution is the main route for industrial hydrogen production, due to its more benign reaction conditions compared to those of acidic media. Currently, although Pt-based materials are being used as the state-of-the-art electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the HER efficiency of such materials in alkaline media is two orders of magnitude lower than that in acidic conditions.…”

Container-Sized CO2 to Methane: Design, Construction and Catalytic Tests Using Raw Biogas to Biomethane

“…The fresh catalyst shows broad XRD peaks corresponding to a small noncrystalline nature. The characteristic diffraction peaks at 37.2, 43.1, 62.9, and 75.2 • corresponded to NiO (JCPDS = 47-1049), while the broad peak at 44 • could be attributed to both NiO and Ni [33,34]. According to the database, the diffraction peaks at 44.5 and 51.9 • were assigned to Ni (JCPDS = 87-0712).…”

Facile Surface Laser Modification of Nickel Foams for Efficient Water Oxidation Electrocatalysis

“…[1,2] However, water oxidation, known as oxygen evolution reaction (OER), plays as the bottleneck of the water splitting process due to its slow kinetics and low efficiency, where efficient OER electrocatalysts are needed. [3,4] To reduce the consumption of high-activity precious metal oxides-based OER electrocatalysts (e. g., IrO 2 and RuO 2 ), plenty of efforts have been devoted to the fabrication, design, and construction of noble-metal-free electrocatalysts, i. e., transition metal-based materials, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] with the aim of achieving high OER performance simultaneously in a simple, facile, and environment-friendly way. [18][19][20][21][22] Despite that some of these electrocatalysts have demonstrated reasonable OER performance, most of these fabrication methods, however, involve complicated processes under harsh conditions, e. g., high temperature, high pressure, and long reaction time, which are time-, and energy-consuming.…”

“…For the construction of the electrocatalysts, conductive substrates, e. g., carbon foam, [25,26] nickel foam, [9,10] copper foam, [27,28] and iron foam, [29,30] are generally required for the growth of the electrocatalysts as well as for the effective transfer of electrons. Among them, nickel foam (NF) is one of the most widely used substrates due to its high strength, abundance, good conductivity, low price, commercial availability, high stability, and resistance to corrosion in alkaline condition.…”