Cooperative effect of bimetallic MOF-derived CoNi(OH)2@NiCo2S4nanocomposite electrocatalysts with boosted oxygen evolution activity

Lingxia Zheng; Shibin Wang; Yongzhi Wang; Zhefei Zhao; Pengju Yang; Jianlan Song; Xiaowei Shi; Huajun Zheng

doi:10.1088/1361-6528/ac5f99

Cooperative effect of bimetallic MOF-derived CoNi(OH)₂@NiCo₂S₄nanocomposite electrocatalysts with boosted oxygen evolution activity

Nanotechnology. 2022 Apr 7;33(26). doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac5f99.

Authors

Lingxia Zheng^{1

2}, Shibin Wang^{2

3}, Yongzhi Wang¹, Zhefei Zhao¹, Pengju Yang¹, Jianlan Song¹, Xiaowei Shi^{1

2}, Huajun Zheng^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Applied Chemistry, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, People's Republic of China.
² State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Green Chemistry Synthesis Technology, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, People's Republic of China.
³ College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 35313291
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac5f99

Abstract

Highly efficient and inexpensive electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are extensively studied for water splitting. Herein, a unique bimetallic nanocomposite CoNi(OH)₂@NiCo₂S₄nanosheet arrays derived from metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs, CoNi-ZIF) is simply fabricated on Ni foam, endowing large specific surface area and outstanding electrical conductivity. Compared with their single-metallic counterparts, the bimetallic composite displays dramatically low overpotential and small Tafel slope as well as outstanding catalytic stability. The overpoptential at 20 mA cm^-2for CoNi(OH)₂@NiCo₂S₄is only 230 mV in comparison with Ni(OH)₂@Ni₃S₂(266 mV), Co(OH)₂@Co₃S₄(294 mV) and RuO₂(η = 302 mV). First-principle calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) are carried out and reveal that the introduction of Ni in Co(OH)₂helps lowered the energy difference of ΔG_OOH*-ΔG_O*, and thereby boosting the OER reactivity. This study provides an effective approach for the rational construction of low-cost metal hybrids.

Keywords: MOF derived nanocomposite; bimetallic hydroxide; bimetallic sulfide; oxygen evolution reaction; synergy effect.