Ultrafast Electrodeposition of Ni Metal and NiFe Hydroxide Composites with Heterogeneous Nanostructures as High Performance Multifunctional Electrocatalysts

Abstract

Water electrolysis provides an efficient method to produce hydrogen as clean energy source. Developing high activity electro‐catalysts towards the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is crucial to improve the energy‐conversion efficiency of water electrolysis. In this work, heterogeneous nanostructures of NiFe hydroxide composites decorated by Ni metal were directly grown on a porous nickel foam (NF) substrate through an ultrafast electrodeposition process at a large cathodic current density of 1.5 A cm−2 within only 2 seconds. The as‐prepared Ni/NiFe (OH)x–1500 electrode offers a low OER overpotential of 240 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and 290 mV at 100 mA cm−2, a small Tafel slope of 36 mV Dec−1, which are superior to those of a commercial RuO2/Ti electrode. Moreover, Ni/NiFe (OH)x–1500 shows good stability and low cell voltage in the long‐time alkaline‐water splitting. Additionally, the Ni/NiFe (OH)x–1500 electrode also displays excellent electro‐catalytic activity toward the oxidation of hydrazine and glucose. This work provides a facile and rapid method to obtain high performance multifunctional electro‐catalysts.

Electrochemical Cathodic Treatment of Mild Steel as a Host for Ni(OH)2 Catalyst for Oxygen Evolution Reaction in Alkaline Media

“…It may be due to the thin layer of modified samples with poor crystalline and discontinuous lattice arrangements on the MS and discontinuous lattice arrangement of Fe and Ni hydroxide. It is similar to the recent observation of in-situ grown Fe(Ni)OOH catalyst on stainless steel substrate by Tang et al electrodeposited Ni and Fe hydroxide on carbon cloth by Zhuang et al and NiÀ Fe Oxide/ (Oxy)hydroxide on stainless steel support by Shen et al [13,22,23] In addition to this, surface chemical change was observed through Raman spectroscopy investigations also. Figure 3 shows the Raman spectra of MS, C MS, MS Ni(OH) 2 and C MS Ni(OH) 2 after OER cyclic sweep.…”

“…electrodeposited Ni and Fe hydroxide on carbon cloth by Zhuang et al. and Ni−Fe Oxide/(Oxy)hydroxide on stainless steel support by Shen et al . In addition to this, surface chemical change was observed through Raman spectroscopy investigations also.…”

“…This leads to the detachment of the catalysts from the current collector/substrates which in turn retards the efficiency. [7,13,14] To overcome these issues, many researchers have attempted to grow the catalysts over the substrate of current collectors (Ni and Cu foam, CFP are as most common among) via different routes (dip coating followed by calcination, hydrothermal, solvothermal, electrodeposition, chemical vapour deposition). [4,5,7,15] In this respect, Fe doped Ni(OH) 2 by room temperature etching of Ni foam by FeCl 3 was carried out by Dong and Guo et al [5,15] Zhuang and Sun et al showed NiFe hydroxide deposited over the Ni foam.…”

“…[4,5,7,15] In this respect, Fe doped Ni(OH) 2 by room temperature etching of Ni foam by FeCl 3 was carried out by Dong and Guo et al [5,15] Zhuang and Sun et al showed NiFe hydroxide deposited over the Ni foam. [13,14] Compared to Ni foam, Fe based substrates are found to be more suitable candidates for metallic support in alkaline medium. Meanwhile, higher abundance of Fe as compared to Ni offers more possibility of Fe based electrode production in the future.…”

CuPd Alloy Oxide Nanobelts as Electrocatalyst Towards Hydrazine Oxidation

“…Therefore, it is prospective to become the power source of mobile stations and fuel cell vehicles. Therefore, non-precious metals such as Cu, [18][19][20][21] Fe, [22] Co, [23][24][25] Ni [26][27][28][29] based alloys have attracted many attentions due to their high conductivities, low costs, and most importantly good catalytic activities. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] Among those, noble metals such as Au, [10,11] Pd, [12,13] Pt [14,15] and Ag [16,17] exhibit relatively better catalytic properties and slower self-decomposition rates.…”