Ultrafast Formation of Amorphous Bimetallic Hydroxide Films on 3D Conductive Sulfide Nanoarrays for Large-Current-Density Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalysis

Xu Zou; Yipu Liu; Guo-Dong Li; Yuanyuan Wu; Da-Peng Liu; Wang Li; Hai-Wen Li; Dejun Wang; Yu Zhang; Xiaoxin Zou

doi:10.1002/adma.201700404

Ultrafast Formation of Amorphous Bimetallic Hydroxide Films on 3D Conductive Sulfide Nanoarrays for Large-Current-Density Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalysis

Adv Mater. 2017 Jun;29(22). doi: 10.1002/adma.201700404. Epub 2017 Mar 29.

Authors

Xu Zou¹, Yipu Liu¹, Guo-Dong Li¹, Yuanyuan Wu¹, Da-Peng Liu², Wang Li², Hai-Wen Li³, Dejun Wang^{1

4}, Yu Zhang², Xiaoxin Zou¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, P. R. China.
² Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Environment, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, P. R. China.
³ International Research Center for Hydrogen Energy, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 8190395, Japan.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P. R. China.

PMID: 28370573
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201700404

Abstract

Developing nonprecious oxygen evolution electrocatalysts that can work well at large current densities is of primary importance in a viable water-splitting technology. Herein, a facile ultrafast (5 s) synthetic approach is reported that produces a novel, efficient, non-noble metal oxygen-evolution nano-electrocatalyst that is composed of amorphous Ni-Fe bimetallic hydroxide film-coated, nickel foam (NF)-supported, Ni₃ S₂ nanosheet arrays. The composite nanomaterial (denoted as Ni-Fe-OH@Ni₃ S₂ /NF) shows highly efficient electrocatalytic activity toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at large current densities, even in the order of 1000 mA cm^-2 . Ni-Fe-OH@Ni₃ S₂ /NF also gives an excellent catalytic stability toward OER both in 1 m KOH solution and in 30 wt% KOH solution. Further experimental results indicate that the effective integration of high catalytic reactivity, high structural stability, and high electronic conductivity into a single material system makes Ni-Fe-OH@Ni₃ S₂ /NF a remarkable catalytic ability for OER at large current densities.

Keywords: composite materials; large current density; oxygen evolution reaction, electrocatalysis.