Water-Plasma Assisted Synthesis of Oxygen-Enriched Ni–Fe Layered Double Hydroxide Nanosheets for Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Abstract

Developing nonprecious and effective catalysts for electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction (OER) remains a critical challenge among energy conversion technologies. Herein, we developed a novel oxygen-enriched nickel–iron layered double hydroxide (NiFe-LDH) nanosheets electrocatalyst prepared by water-plasma assisted synthesis. The water-plasma engraved oxygen-enriched NiFe-LDH nanosheets possessed a large petal structure of ∼3 μm lateral size with plentiful pores distributed on each flak with 10 nm thicknesses, and a large BET surface area (151 m2 g–1). Profiting by enriched oxygen atoms and fast charge transfer, the oxygen-enriched NiFe-LDH nanosheets displayed a favorable electrocatalytic performance toward OER with a low Tafel slope of 74 mV dec–1 and an overpotential at 10 mA cm–2 for 310 mV in 1.0 M KOH. Such low overpotential was much smaller than initial NiFe-LDH nanosheets (360 mV), and even superior to commercial Ir/C electrocatalyst (370 mV). Sustainable and highly active full water splitting enabled by oxygen-enriched NiFe-LDH nanosheets could be further driven by solar cell or two alkali batteries.

Nickel foam and stainless steel mesh as electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction, oxygen evolution reaction and overall water splitting in alkaline media

“…2 In recent years, much effort has been made on the developing of inexpensive electrocatalysts for HER, OER and overall water splitting based on earth-abundant transition metals. For example, a large amount of transition metal oxides, [9][10][11][12][13][14] hydroxides, [15][16][17][18] chalcogenides, [19][20][21][22] phosphides, [23][24][25][26][27] suldes [28][29][30][31][32] and carbides 33,34 have been explored as efficient and potential HER, [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]32,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31]33 and overall water splitting electrocatalysts 25,…”

Promoting Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction and Oxygen Evolution Reaction by Fields: Effects of Electric Field, Magnetic Field, Strain, and Light

“…Furthermore, introducing crystal defects is also a common route to increase the number of active sites and intrinsic activity. [ 249–251 ] Therefore, tailoring the defects of wide‐bandgap electrocatalysts may be a compelling scheme to implement high‐performance photothermy‐assisted electrocatalytic HER/OER in the future.…”

Nanocarbon-Enhanced 2D Photoelectrodes: A New Paradigm in Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

“…These octahedrons further form a 2D layered structure by sharing the edge atoms. In general, the LDHs materials can be described by using a common chemical formula of M [139,140]. Furthermore, the strong electrostatic interactions between the anion and cation layers endow the LDHs materials with ordered arrangement of interlayer species and tailorable orientation of active sites, which accelerates the movement of photogenerated charge carriers, thus boosting the OER activity [141].…”