Activating lattice oxygen in NiFe-based (oxy)hydroxide for water electrolysis

Zuyun He; Jun Zhang; Zhiheng Gong; Hang Lei; Deng Zhou; Nian Zhang; Wenjie Mai; Shijun Zhao; Yan Chen

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-29875-4

Activating lattice oxygen in NiFe-based (oxy)hydroxide for water electrolysis

Nat Commun. 2022 Apr 21;13(1):2191. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29875-4.

Authors

Zuyun He^#¹, Jun Zhang^#², Zhiheng Gong¹, Hang Lei³, Deng Zhou⁴, Nian Zhang⁴, Wenjie Mai³, Shijun Zhao⁵, Yan Chen⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Environment and Energy, State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510006, China.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
³ Siyuan Laboratory, Guangdong Provincial Engineering Technology Research Centre of Vacuum Coating Technologies and New Energy Materials, Department of Physics, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510632, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200050, China.
⁵ Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. shijzhao@cityu.edu.hk.
⁶ School of Environment and Energy, State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510006, China. escheny@scut.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Transition metal oxides or (oxy)hydroxides have been intensively investigated as promising electrocatalysts for energy and environmental applications. Oxygen in the lattice was reported recently to actively participate in surface reactions. Herein, we report a sacrificial template-directed approach to synthesize Mo-doped NiFe (oxy)hydroxide with modulated oxygen activity as an enhanced electrocatalyst towards oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The obtained MoNiFe (oxy)hydroxide displays a high mass activity of 1910 A/g_metal at the overpotential of 300 mV. The combination of density functional theory calculations and advanced spectroscopy techniques suggests that the Mo dopant upshifts the O 2p band and weakens the metal-oxygen bond of NiFe (oxy)hydroxide, facilitating oxygen vacancy formation and shifting the reaction pathway for OER. Our results provide critical insights into the role of lattice oxygen in determining the activity of (oxy)hydroxides and demonstrate tuning oxygen activity as a promising approach for constructing highly active electrocatalysts.

Abstract

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